ins: 



NATION IN COMMON LIFE 




^ATKINSON 




Glass 224^iS 
Book 'i^Z-i^: 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON 
LIFE 



W. L. WATKINSON 

author of "the transfigured sackcloth, and other sermons, 
"the blind spot," "the education of the heart," etc. 



CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM. 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS. 






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I. 

INSPIEATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

"Doth the ploughman plough all day to 
sow? doth he open and break the clods of 
his ground ? . . . For his G-od doth instruct 
him to discretion, and doth teach him." — Isa. 
xxviii. 24—26. 

The great doctrine of this fine passage 
is unfortunately only imperfectly realised 
by us. The fact that God dwells m the 
common people, instructing and teach- 
ing them to discretion, is a precious 
truth which it is of the first consequence 
that we should understand and appre- 
ciate. The inspiration of the Bible 
excites fierce and endless controversy, 
whilst we well-nigh forget the inspiration 
of the living epistle of the street. 

I. God guides the lowliest of His 
children in all the affairs of their worldly 
life. Few will read the text without 



6 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

a measure of surprise : there is some- 
thing so absolutely startling in this 
abrupt contact of the Almighty with the 
ploughman. Why, then, are we thus 
surprised ? 

1. It arises from the fact that we 
distinguish between intellectual and 
vulgar life, excluding God from the 
latter. No difficulty is felt in acknow- 
ledging the inspiration of the artist. 
We read that Bezaleel was " filled with 
the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in 
understanding, and in knowledge, and 
in all manner of workmanship, to devise 
cunning works, to work in gold, and in 
silver, and in brass, and in cutting of 
stones, to set them, and in carving of 
timber, to work in all manner of work- 
manship." This testimony excites no 
surprise. We accept the inspiration of 
the philosopher. That Copernicus by 
a kind of supernatural flash perceived 
the celestial order, and that Newton by 
a similar intuition discerned the master- 
law in the falling apple, most are will- 
ing to allow. We believe, too, in the 



INSPIBATION IN COMMON LIFE. 7 

inspiration of the poet, at least in the 
inspiration of a few. When a ruaster- 
minstrel makes glorious music, it is 
easy to believe in the divine in-breath- 
ing. But it is an altogether different 
matter to recognise the inspiration of 
the ploughman. What mystical illu- 
mination can the peasantry need in 
breaking clods, weeding crops, binding 
sheaves, or tending sheep ? What 
divine teaching is called for in saw- 
mills, ship-yards, factories, forges, 
tanneries, potteries, or in the humble 
tenement of the labourer ? 

Yet this passage may remind us that 
the distinction drawn in human life 
and duty between the intellectual and 
vulgar is unauthenticated. God is not 
confined to picture-galleries, museums, 
observatories, and libraries; nor is in- 
spiration limited to scholars, scientists, 
and artists : He is equally present and 
operative in the miscalled vulgar sphere, 
giving the lowliest toiler insight into 
whatever relates to his calling and 
service. There is no vulgar world, 



8 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

although, unfortunately, there are many 
vulgar people. The whole range of 
human duty is one undivided kingdom, 
the working out of one divine purpose, 
the various appointments of one glorious 
Taskmaster ; thus all callings are noble, 
all faithful workers honourable, and the 
dust of the world is the dust of gold, 

2. We are surprised at the contact of 
the Almighty with ploughmen because 
of our habit of distinguishing between 
influential and insignificant life, exclud- 
ing God from the latter. We are not 
astonished to learn that God inspires 
princes, as when He granted super- 
natural enlightenment to Solomon. 
The ploughman, however, seems quite 
insignificant, and his affairs petty. But 
is he insignificant ? In truth he is one 
of the essential actors of the world; 
were his task neglected or badly wrought 
things would go sadly with us all. We 
might dispense with a king, not with 
the ploughman. Therefore God makes 
him a rough geologist, chemist, meteoro- 
logist, and astronomer; one with an 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. U 

understanding of soils, seeds, and 
seasons ; so that the hearts of men may 
be filled with food and gladness. Every 
true member of the great hierarchy of 
workers is important: none may say 
who amongst us is the most important, 
who the least. " The eye cannot say 
unto the hand, I have no need of thee : 
nor again, the head to the feet, I have 
no need of you. Nay, much more, those 
members of the body, which seem to be 
more feeble, are necessary." Are the 
ploughman's affairs trivial? Whilst 
listening to a wrangle in the House of 
Commons a nobleman is reported to 
have whispered to his son: " See with 
how little wisdom a nation is governed.'' 
On the other hand, what thought, judg- 
ment, and resourcefulness are demanded 
in the successful management of a 
modest household ! The parade of 
parliaments is lacking there, but all 
problems of national government are 
settled in domestic councils ; the 
pageantry of courts is absent, but all 
the gladness and glory of life are 



10 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

proved by the fireside; the pomps of 
woe are unknown, but all the tragedy 
of life is there. Great statesmen build 
noble empire only as they find the gold 
and ivory, the cedar and scarlet, in the 
cottages of the people. The hind makes 
and saves empire. " If we cast a glance 
over the pages of history, we may note 
that the monarch, the statesman, the 
financier, and the philosopher continu- 
ally contrive to bring the world to the 
verge of ruin, and that it is only saved 
from utter destruction by the peasant's 
blood, by his hard-won earnings, and his 
patient toil. Is not that the story of the 
nations in a few words? " * No life is in- 
significant. Every man is of immense 
importance to himself ; the various 
members of a household are of profound 
interest to one another; and each 
obscure home exerts a real influence 
upon the welfare of nations and serves 
to shape the destiny of the race. The 
superficial distinctions of status and 
culture about which we make so much 
* " Eristic Art," by Henry Naegely. 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 11 

ado have no existence for God ; He 
knows the pure humanity only, and 
with sovereign impartiality breathes in 
oaten pipe and jewelled lute. 

3. We are surprised at this contact of 
God with ploughmen because of our habit 
of distinguishing between sacred life and 
secular, whilst excluding God from the 
latter. We naturally concede the in- 
spiration of prophet and priest. They 
hold commerce directly with the upper 
universe ; they hear the divine voice ; 
they are the ministers and messengers 
of God's spiritual kingdom and purpose ; 
there is therefore nothing to marvel at in 
the fact that He anoints and instructs 
them, makes their face to shine, and 
touches their lips with hallowed fire. 
But the ploughman breaking clods and 
sowing fitches occupies a very different 
position, apparently belonging to a dis- 
tinctly inferior sphere — the realm of the 
material, mechanical, and secular. Yet 
in the view of our text the ploughman's 
realm and that of the prophet are identi- 
cal. Remember that God lives and moves 



12 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

in the worldly circle as certainly as He 
does in the ecclesiastical, in the shop as 
in the sanctuary, in the ploughman as in 
the priest. Far from narrowing the 
sphere of the spiritual, let us widen it 
until it comprehends all that concerns 
human life and character. To see the 
supernatural in the natural, the poetic 
in the rude, is the most clamant need of 
our times, and the true line of human 
progress. As Ferdinand Brunetiere 
says: "There are no commonplaces, 
there are only lazy minds." We owe 
as much, perhaps more, to poets like 
Burns, and painters like Millet, who 
brought home to us the pathos, loveli- 
ness, and sacredness of lowly folk and 
their simple lot, than we do to bards like 
Homer, and artists like Baphael, who 
painted the grandeurs of heroic spheres. 
He who revealed to us in the Angelus 
the lurking mystery and glory of the 
peasant disclosed more than he who 
showed an angel standing in the sun. 
Let us eagerly and lovingly recognise 
the mysticism and holiness of the 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 13 

commonplace and universal. We hallow 
the Lord's Day. Does that imply that 
the other six days of the week are not 
holy, or less holy ? Surely not ; for the 
seventh day is the symbol of the holiness 
of every day, of the sanctity of all dura- 
tion. We uncover in the sanctuary. 
Does that signify that other places are 
nnconsecrated ? Nay ; the sanctuary is 
the symbol of the sanctity of all space. 
The inspiration of the Scriptures is a 
doctrine dear to the devout. Does that 
suggest that the in-breathing of the Spirit 
is the monopoly of prophet and apostle ? 
Much rather does it imply that the Bible 
is the symbol of the fact that true men 
and women everywhere are taught of 
God. "Down with everything that is 
up," is in some quarters a popular cry. 
Degrade the holy day, the holy place, 
the holy book. Let us follow another 
programme. Do not secularise the Lord's 
Day, consecrate the other days ; do not 
depreciate the sanctuary, hallow the 
other places ; do not fretfully pick holes 
in the doctrine of Biblical authority and 



14 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

inspiration, see to it that all the Lord's 
people are prophets. 

We sometimes look up into the blue 
sky and think how far the earth lies 
below it— the tender, pure, luminous 
firmament seems mysteriously remote. 
But this is a mere optical illusion : the 
blue sky is not far off ; it is blue down 
here as it is up there ; we live in the blue 
sky, sit in heavenly places, dwell amid 
the stars. Thus human life is apt to 
appear common and debased, far re- 
moved from the celestial and divine. 
But this also is an illusion : things close 
to our hands and feet are divine ; all is 
sacred, sabbatic, and sacramental ; God 
broods over all, and all is for eternity. 

Our everyday work must be done in a 
higher spirit. Let each worker know 
that he is not a " hand," but a soul ; 
that he is a minister of God ; and that 
every office must be filled, every relation 
sustained, and every duty wrought in the 
spirit of prayer and consecration. Think 
of the temper in which the old builders 
reared and adorned the cathedrals. 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 15 

The devout craftsmen wrought as in 
the presence of God, and their crea- 
tions, saturated with great thought 
and fine feeling, are the wonder and 
pride of successive generations. Every 
ploughman, labourer, artificer, shop- 
keeper, manufacturer, and merchant 
should pursue his task with similar 
intelligence, conscience, and aspiration ; 
in the self-same spirit of enthusiasm, 
reverence, and love. And if we do this, 
we may justly claim the divine guidance 
and strengthening in all the affairs of 
our worldly life. The churl is not too 
mean ; nothing is too minute for Heaven's 
notice and blessing. " He despiseth not 
any." Bring your faith to bear upon 
every domestic perplexity, financial care, 
social duty, and worldly solicitude. Our 
religion may and ought to pervade the 
whole range of thought and action. 
Wait for the divine prompting, follow 
the divine leading, realise the divine 
grace and benediction in every situation, 
duty, and concern of life, however hum- 
ble may seem your lot and trivial your 



16 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

care. In the house, the field, the shop, 
and the exchange, plan and act in the 
light and power of the Divine Spirit, 
and the most obscure station and menial 
task shall yield satisfying joy, and work 
out splendid consequences in character 
and destiny. 

II. God guides the lowliest of His 
children in all the affairs of their inner 
life. The lowliest of men possess a 
great spiritual nature. We spoke of 
the painter and the ploughman : the 
painter is in the ploughman ; he does 
not always get out as he did in Jean 
Francois Millet, but he is there even 
when he produces no masterpieces, for 
often the rude rustic gazes upon the 
glory of sky and landscape with joy 
unspeakable. We spoke of the poet 
and the ploughman : the poet is in the 
ploughman ; he does not often get out 
as he did in Eobert Burns, but he is 
there even when mute, for " God has 
made many poets, and given utter- 
ance only to a few." We spoke of the 
prophet and the ploughman : the prophet 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 17 

Is in the ploughman ; he rarely gets 
out as he did in Amos, but he is there 
even when his pained heart, pregnant 
with celestial fire, finds no expression, 
Let us, however, drop all metaphor, 
and frankly affirm the spirituality and 
unfathomableness of shepherd and swine- 
herd as well as the essential greatness of 
sovereign and seer. Misguided thinkers 
labour to establish a radical distinction 
between men, compared with which all 
merely social and political distinctions 
are trifling. They assume that we be- 
long to two entirely different orders : 
there is first a small aristocracy of the 
soul, and then comes the vulgar demo- 
cratic mass which is clay, only clay. 
Eevelation knows nothing of such a 
distinction. In the Old Testament God 
elects His prophets from the tillers of 
the field ; in the New Testament Christ 
chooses His apostles from the fishers of 
the sea. We are " all of one " — of one 
stock ; alike spiritual, infinite, immortal : 
there is no difference in our quality, as 
there is none in our guilt. Christianity 

C.L. B 



18 INSPIBATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

unwaveringly proclaims the essential 
greatness of the lowliest races, classes, 
and individuals. 

All have heard of the epitaph inscribed 
on the frail memorial of a peasant in the 
country churchyard: " Only a clod." 
Whether dictated in a pathetic or cynical 
temper, that epitaph is really very 
grand. What wonderful things are latent 
in a clod ! All possibilities of form, 
colour, music, light, fragrance, and fruit- 
fulness, are there. Exquisite shapes, 
ravishing hues, ears of gold, purple 
clusters, bread to strengthen man's 
heart, and oil to make his face to shine, 
dropping honey, burning roses, pure 
lilies, and a thousand other miracles of 
grace and glory spring out of the dust. 
" Only a clod." " So you think you 
know what a clod is, do you?" is the 
arch query of Schopenhauer. Indeed, 
we do not. The mystery, splendour, 
and potency of the world are unfolded 
in the clod of the valley on which we 
set our foot. Thus is it with the plough- 
man himself. We dismiss him as a 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 19 

clown, and his short and simple annals 
are soon forgotten, but we little reck 
the grandeur wrapped up in that rude 
shape. " Only a clod." It will amaze 
us on the morning of the Resurrection to 
see what God brings out of that clod 
when this corruptible puts on incorrup- 
tion and this mortal puts on immortality. 
" Now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be." 

And God is ever ready to guide and 
save His greatly gifted children whose 
potential splendour is for the present 
so thickly disguised. He causes them 
to apprehend the deepest truths of 
revelation and spiritual life. Where 
great scholars stumble, simple souls 
grasp the things freely given us of God. 
Our Lord burst forth as in glad sur- 
prise : "I thank Thee, Father, Lord 
of heaven and earth, because Thou hast 
hid these things from the wise and 
prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
bales." As Emerson somewhere says: 
" The best light that comes to any man 
is in those fitful flabhes which visit tha 

b 2 



20 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

firmament of the mind " ; and this light 
of life is vouchsafed to all honest souls. 
God grants the illumination of pure 
truth to the most illiterate ; and whilst 
they are profoundly ignorant of a thou- 
sand intellectual themes, they are filled 
with the knowledge of His will in all 
wisdom and spiritual understanding. 
The most cultured scholars, as well as 
the most profound divines and philo- 
sophers, are often astonished at the 
marvellous spiritual insight of the man 
in the street. The ploughboy, artisan, 
fisher, and dustman, lacking the first 
elements of education, come to the know- 
ledge of the true God and eternal life. 
And through years of moral development 
the Spirit of God abides with them, un- 
veiling to them grand ideals, inspiring 
them with the wisdom that is from above, 
causing them to grasp the significance 
of sorrow and suffering, endowing them 
with heroic fortitude, and kindling 
within them mighty hopes. They get 
nothing from the book-shelf, everything 
from the sky. " The Lord preserveth 



INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 21 

the simple." Clever people take care of 
themselves, and we may often see with 
what disastrous consequences ; but the 
meek and poor He lovingly guides in 
paths of truth and peace. 

We all need the personal, direct, and 
continuous leading of God, and nothing 
can become a substitute for this. If in 
this country we wish to take a journey, 
there is a plain path before us and a 
finger-post at every turn of the road ; 
but when the Indian sets forth to cross 
trackless forest and pathless prairie, he 
has a different task : he can find his way 
only by consulting a variety of delicate 
signs — the position of the sun, the rise 
and set of stars, the trend of the trees, 
the flight of birds, the compass-flower in 
the grass; and only as the traveller is 
acute enough to observe and interpret 
these signs does he walk safely. Our 
path through this world is like that of 
the Indian. In worldly affairs no philo- 
sopher, in spiritual affairs no theologian, 
can make our path plain. You cannot 
make life topographical. According to 



22 INBPIBATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

a French writer, " The poet's compass is 
his intuition"; it is certainly the compass 
of the saint. Every career is full of 
original situations and perplexing ques- 
tions ; none ever passed this way before, 
and all must listen for God's whisper in 
their heart. " I will guide thee with 
Mine eye." Here is the secret. Keep 
your eye on God's eye ; cherish a sin- 
cere, sensitive, responsive soul ; and He 
shall preserve you from every false way. 
" If any man lack wisdom, let him ask 
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, 
and upbraideth not ; and it shall be 
given him." 






It 

HIGH LATITUDES. 

" God hath raised us up together, and made 
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus." — Eph. ii 6. 

The apostle here reminds us that the 
true believer is identified with Christ in 
His resurrection and enthronement at 
God's right hand ; as Christ was raised 
from the dead and exalted to the heavenly 
regions, there to reign in authority and 
blessedness, so His disciples are exalted 
in Him to share His power and joy. 
The text does not speak of a future 
exaltation, but of one that has already 
taken place ; it does not refer to a rare 
mood or passing ecstasy, but to a per- 
manent loftiness of soul : it teaches that 
in the power of the Spirit the Christian 
habitually realises an ideal life in Christ 
Jesus. Let no one in the name of the 



24 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

practical despise the mysticism of the 
text. What would become of litera- 
ture if a transcendentalist like Emerson 
or Maeterlinck did not appear every now 
and then ? What would become of 
art if an idealist like Watts did not 
occasionally excite our wonder? What 
would become of ethics if it were not 
for the intermittent visitation of poets, 
mystics, and saints fluttering the utili- 
tarians? What we now propose is to 
insist on the splendid gain of realising to 
the full this heavenly life, the vital ad- 
vantage of living with a vivid conscious- 
ness of God, in the rich experience of His 
grace, in the clear, commanding hope 
of immortality. Live on the highest 
level, see to it that you are actuated by 
and infolded in the heavenly. The 
spiritual is the salt of life, and without 
it everything decays that makes us men. 
By centring our thought on God, by 
alluring us with the vision of our Lord's 
unearthly beauty, by unsealing foun- 
tains of inspiration in prayer and 
worship, by lifting us nigh to heaven's 



HIGH LATITUDES. 25 

gate, the New Testament exalts experi- 
ence and character to rare altitudes of 
perfection and blessedness. Life is at 
its best in high latitudes of thought and 
emotion, at its best of all on those 
table-lands of which God Himself is 
sun and moon. 

1. In heavenly places in Christ Jesus 
we are most exempt from error. Men 
of action feel the need of a certain 
periodic intellectual detachment from 
the sphere of their activity ; they realise 
that they must withdraw themselves 
from immediate contact with their voca- 
tion, must survey their work from 
a distance, and stand outside and above 
their worldly calling, if they are to 
comprehend the situation and do it 
justice. Statesmen absorbed in public 
affairs take refuge in history, philosophy, 
theology, fiction, and poetry — Bright 
read Milton, Gladstone studied Homer, 
Salisbury cultivated science, and Balfour 
delights in philosophy. To direct paro- 
chial politics wisely the statesman must 
at intervals rise above the local and the 



26 INSPIBATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

current, he must muse in high places, 
look far and wide, and correct his thought 
and judgment by reference to universal 
and abiding truths. The same is true 
of all men : if they are to judge justly 
and live successfully, they must ponder 
life from high places, see it from afar in 
the light of God's character and govern- 
ment, of Christ's spirit and mission, in 
the light of eternity, for only then do 
they see it truly. Eecently a newspaper 
writer was protesting against people in 
public assemblies obstructing theirneigh- 
bours' vision by wearing hats and orna- 
ments of inordinate dimensions, and in 
emphasising his protest he enlarged on 
"the malignance of the law of perspec- 
tive," the blinding power of a trifling 
object near the eye, making invisible 
vast objects at a little distance — in the 
theatre a tiny flower eclipsing the stage, 
in church the frond of a feather hiding 
the pulpit and the preacher. But where 
is "the malignance of the law of per- 
spective " most tremendously illustrated? 
Surely in the strange power of worldly 



HIGH LATITUDES. 27 

trifles to render invisible the magnitudes 
of eternity. A rose-bud of pleasure close 
to the eye shuts out the abiding universe 
of glory and joy; a speck of gold-leaf 
tragically blinds one to heaven and hell ; 
a morsel of pottage makes men oblivious 
of their splendid birthright ; and the 
frond of pride's feather not only renders 
the pulpit invisible, but too often clouds 
the vast truths of which the pulpit is the 
symbol. " The malignance of the law 
of perspective " is seen at its worst when 
the sensual obscures the spiritual, the 
material the moral, and the temporal 
the eternal. How shall we escape this 
malignance ? Get into the high moun- 
tain, scale the sky and stand by the 
angel in the sun, nay, weigh and measure 
the earth as you sit in heavenly places 
in Christ Jesus, for it is only when from 
the heights of eternity we estimate 
the seen and temporal that we gauge 
their true worth, realise their meaning, 
and know how they may best serve our 
everlasting interest. 

Until quite recently astronomical 



28 INSPIBATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

observatories were built in or near large 
cities, little attention being paid to 
astronomical considerations ; but now 
when such an observatory is founded an 
effort is made to get the inestimable 
advantage of a good climate for the pur- 
poses of celestial observation. The Lick 
Observatory, on Mount Hamilton, Cali- 
fornia, stands more than four thousand 
feet high ; there is no question about 
the excellence of the climate — no fog, 
dust, smoke, or atmospheric tremors 
blur the images in the telescope ; all is 
clear and calm, " God's own climate." 
In such happily situated places the exact 
truth concerning the facts and laws of 
the firmament is ascertained and 
published for the benefit of mankind. 
When men live in the big city, occu- 
pied early and late with its affairs 
and distractions, does it not obscure 
their thought, warp their judgment, 
depress their ideals? Think of living 
the year round in the commercial world, 
with all its injustices ; in the political 
world, with all its dishonesties ; in the 



HIGH LATITUDES, 29 

social world, with all its unrealties ; in 
the religious world, with all its bigotries ! 
The intellect will lose its lucidity, the 
conscience its discriminativeness, the 
heart its charity, and all life its sincerity 
and freshness. If we mind only earthly 
things, we must necessarily become the 
victims of manifold misconceptions, pre- 
judices, superstitions, and illusions. 
What, then, shall we do that we may 
retain the sanity of our nature, the truth 
of vision, and that our verdicts may be 
reliable ? Mount into u God's own 
climate/' beyond fog, dust, and cloud, 
beyond the causes and occasions of 
disturbance and aberration ; talk with 

M The great old saints of other days, 
"Who once received on Horeb's height 
The eternal laws of truth and right, 
Or caught the still small whisper, higher 
Than storm, than earthquake, or than fire " ; 

see life in God's light ; test all by the 
spirit and teaching of the Christ : so 
shall you " be filled with the knowledge 
of His will in all wisdom and spiritual 
understanding." 



30 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

2. In heavenly places in Christ Jesus 
we are safest from contamination and peril. 
Those who live on high levels of prin- 
ciple, sentiment, and conduct are entirely 
exempt from many forms of temptation 
and danger. Gambling, pocket-picking, 
and tippling to some are dreadful tempta- 
tions; whilst to men of another order, 
living on a higher level of knowledge, 
strength and action, such temptations 
do not exist. Already to many of us 
certain forms of moral besetment are 
as though they were not; if we mount 
to higher ranges, other possibilities of 
evil of which we are conscious will 
similarly cease ; whilst on the highest 
summits of all we best deal with what- 
ever assaults of the soul are still 
inevitable. After traversing a certain 
distance the projectile force of a bullet 
is spent, and at this culminating-point 
the hand of an infant might catch it with 
impunity. An eagle soars so high that 
the ball reaches him harmlessly — it does 
not injure a feather of his wing, which he 
will flap as in derision : whilst sportsmen 



HIGH LATITUDES. 31 

in Australia find their largest shot of 
no avail in bringing down the cockatoos 
which generally perch on the highest 
branches of the giant trees ; the shot 
rattle on their brilliant feathers with 
less force than a shower of hailstones — 
in the tree-tops, or at the " dead point " 
of the missile, the birds rest in perfect 
security. So the saints who claim the 
fulness of their privilege, living "high 
in salvation and the climes of bliss," 
are above and beyond the " dead 
point" of fiery arrows which at shorter 
ranges wound and destroy. On low 
levels we are exposed to all tempta- 
tions, and fight them at extreme dis- 
advantage; rising to a higher sphere of 
spiritual imagination, heavenly fellow- 
ship, and moral quality, many forms of 
temptation and peril are entirely 
transcended. 

Yet, live high as we may, we cannot 
get beyond the range of temptation. It 
pursued our Master, who dwelt only in 
heavenly places ; and if in moral eleva- 
tion His disciples gain the morning star, 



32 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

evil will attempt their senses and under- 
standing, their imagination and affec- 
tions. The whole world believed that 
nothing contaminating would be found 
at the summit of Mont Blanc : who could 
suspect that vicious germs would infest 
its crystal, agents of infection be de- 
tected in its virgin snow, or that elements 
of disease and death would poison the 
streams of its immaculate springs ? But 
the relentless bacteriologist has destroyed 
this illusion, for his pitiless microscope 
has revealed microbes even in the very- 
sanctuary of purity and beauty. The 
wind, sweeping the woods and cities 
of the valleys, carries the plague germs 
right up into the sky, and defiles 
the chaste heights of transparent glass 
and stainless snow. It is much like 
this in human life and in the history of 
the soul. However elevated our thought, 
feeling and purpose, temptation will still 
surprise and threaten ; there is no snow- 
line to forbid the infernal microbes. 
They penetrate the temple, invade the 
pulpit, profane the chamber of secret 



HIGH LATITUDES. 88 

prayer ; and when scientists warn us 
against microbes in the communion-cup, 
we may remember also the spiritual 
peril that lurks in our holiest things. 
Attaining the highest peaks of ex- 
perience and character — the purest 
thought, the finest feeling, the saintliest 
living — we are still haunted by the 
suggestions and seductions of evil : in 
the most aerial triumph of the soul 
we are still conscious of the law of 
gravitation and all the sad possibilities 
of the lower world. Turning to the sixth 
chapter and twelfth verse of this 
epistle we read these extraordinary words : 
"For we wrestle not against flesh and 
blood, but against principalities, against 
powers, against the rulers of the darkness 
of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in high places." Infernal powers, wicked 
spirits, darken the " heavenly places " ; 
a great struggle is waged in these high 
latitudes, noble souls and princes of the 

air 

* ' Grappling in the central blue." 

Yet " heavenly places'' are the best 

O.L. C 



34 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

places in which to fight the foes of the 
soul, the choicest coigns of vantage. 
Bacteriologists console us that the air 
on the summit of Mont Blanc contains 
only a small number of germs, the glacier 
streams are most pure, and the freshly 
fallen snow does not yield a single 
microbe. The pestilent creatures reach 
the heights, but they do not get on well 
there; the air does not suit them, the 
crystal environment attenuates and 
destroys them : they thrive far better 
down below in stables, slaughter-houses, 
piggeries, slums, and drains — there they 
swarm, riot, and prevail. Let us deal 
with temptation on high levels, as the 
Master did ; not appealing to low 
motives, selfish considerations, and argu- 
ments drawn from secular and social 
sources, but fighting it with spiritual 
weapons on the grounds of eternity. 
Fight the good fight under the very eye 
of God, standing close by His side, 
arrayed in His armour of light. We 
are not saved from the evil which 
assaults, or the ills which threaten 



HIGH LATITUDES. 35 

us, by cleverness, prudence, or diplo- 
macy, nor by any utilitarian motives or 
methods whatever ; we are invincible 
and victorious in our sense of God, in 
alliances with the heavenly, in the 
vision and inspiration of the life ever- 
lasting. "Which God wrought in 
Christ, when He raised Him from the 
dead, and set Him at His own right 
hand in the heavenly places, far above 
all principality, and power, and might, 
and dominion, and every name that is 
named, not only in this world, but also in 
that which is to come ; and hath put all 
things under His feet" (Eph. i. 20-22). 
God hath highly exalted Him ; and in 
His mediatorial character and office He 
sits above every authority, lordship, 
power, and government — all being sub- 
ject to Him. If we dwell above in Him, 
if we be one with Him, if His sovereign 
power work in and through us, then in 
every conflict with the world, every 
bitter wrestling with passion and appe- 
tite, in every strange struggle with un- 
known forces of darkness, the conquest 

o2 



36 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

must be with us. We have lost 
battles because we have not reckoned 
with the spirituality and unfathomable- 
ness of wickedness ; henceforth contend 
with it in the light and energy and 
authority of Him who sits at God's right 
hand in the heavenly places, and lost 
battles will be converted into triumphs. 
3. In heavenly places we realise 
fulness of peace and blessedness. These 
radiant altitudes mean perfected felicity. 
Full of reverence and love, of faith and 
hope, with the soul strengthened and har- 
monised by the vision of the good and 
holy God, we prove the peace that this 
world neither gives nor takes away. 
On the Continent gruesome crypts are 
shown paved with gravestones and lined 
with skulls, and here the monks are 
supposed to spend choice hours of con- 
templation and devotion. "What a sad 
travesty ! Jesus Christ never leads His 
disciples down into subterranean cells, 
He does not look that way ; He points 
upward, He leads us through the lights 
and colours of the sky, He clothes us 



HIGH LATITUDES. 37 

with the sun, He puts into the heart the 
solemn serenity of the stars. The faith 
of Christ is of the very essence of peace 
and gladness. " God hath raised us up 
together, and made us sit together in 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. " In 
earlier strata geologists find what may 
be regarded as rough drafts of the more 
exquisite creations of later periods ; and 
in the eleventh chapter of the Book 
of Deuteronomy we find the first crude 
sketch of the ideal life ultimately real- 
ised in Jesus Christ. "But the land, 
whither ye go to possess it, is a land of 
hills and valleys, and drinketh water of 
the rain of heaven : a land which the 
Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of 
the Lord thy God are always upon it, 
from the beginning of the year even unto 
the end of the year." This country was 
the prototype of that land which John 
Bunyan painted so gloriously because 
he lived in it. " The country of Beulah, 
whose air was very sweet and pleasant. 
Yea, here the pilgrims heard continually 
the singing of birds, and saw every day 



38 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

the flowers appear in the earth. In 
this country the sun shineth night and 
day. Here they were within sight of the 
city they were going to ; also here met 
them some of the inhabitants thereof; 
for in this land the Shining Ones 
commonly walked, because it was upon 
the borders of heaven." This is the life 
to which we are called in Christ Jesus ; 
a life without pride or fear, self-will or 
murmuring, beyond the Valley of the 
Shadow of Death, out of reach of Giant 
Despair, and whence we cannot so much 
as see Doubting Castle. This life is im- 
possible on low levels. Beulah blooms 
on highest altitudes of entire consecra- 
tion and absolute surrender to the love 
and law of God ; and we can solace our- 
selves with the corn and wine of the 
favoured land only as we rise above 
every carnal, compromising thought, 
motive, and sympathy. On lower levels 
the rare flowers do not bloom, the birds 
do not sing, and the angels do not walk. 
Whymper, the Alpine climber, said of 
one of his guides that " he was happy 



HIGH LATITUDES. 39 

only when upwards of ten thousand feet 
high " ; and no one knows the pure joy 
of life until he leaves beneath him 
the eagle's nest anil finds the mystic 
edelweiss of snow-white purity in the 
blue depths of " God's own climate " 
of infinite holiness and love. 



IIL 

THE GUILD OF GOD, 

"Eor we a?e God's fellow- workers. 5 * — 

1 Cor. iii. 9 (E.Y.). 

It is a special feature of the Christian 
revelation that throughout it exhibits God 
as a Worker. Other systems represent 
Him as being eternally at rest; He is pic- 
tured as an infinite Dreamer ; to impute 
to Him anything like personal action is 
considered derogatory to His glory. The 
first article of the Christian creed recog- 
nises the divine activity. " I believe in 
God the Father Almighty Maker of 
heaven and earth;" and having made 
the glorious world, we believe that He 
abides in its midst actuating all things 
according to the purpose of His will. 
He also rejoices in the habitable parts 
of the earth, seeking to bring to pass 
His sublime designs. " My Father 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 41 

worketh hitherto, and I work," testified 
the Saviour. The text assigns to us the 
high honour of being " God's fellow- 
workers." The Almighty condescends 
to associate us with Himself in the 
carrying out of His vast far-reaching 
plans. Familiarity with this thought 
must not blind us to its essential gran- 
deur. In a true sense the orbs of 
heaven, the forces of the earth, creeping 
things and flying fowl, are messengers 
and instruments of the Divine Will ; but 
whilst they act involuntarily and uncon- 
sciously, we may co-operate with God 
intelligently, willingly, lovingly. In a 
sense altogether special it is our privilege 
to become His " fellow-workers. " 

1. Consider the great design and obli- 
gation of life. To what end does God 
work ? What is the sum and goal of the 
divine purpose and activity ? To estab- 
lish in the human heart and in human 
society the kingdom of justice and 
righteousness. The aim of God in the 
government of the world is not aesthetic, 
intellectual, or material ; He does not 



42 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

rule to the end of sensuous enjoyment, 
the accumulation of the riches of 
civilisation, or the mental aggrandise- 
ment of the race, but that the king- 
dom of earth may reflect the purity, 
love, and peace of the kingdom in the 
heavens. He ever strives to bring the 
individual into harmony with the 
supreme law, to build the nations into 
a living and holy temple, to fill all 
lands with the noble fruits of goodness 
and joy. By the ministry of sun, moon, 
and stars ; by His government of kings 
and peoples ; by the lamp of His word ; 
by the manifold activities of His Church ; 
and by the influences of His Holy Spirit, 
He ever works for the illumination, 
healing, and perfecting of the souls of 
men. How frequently we altogether lose 
sight of the fact that God has a specific 
end in view in the creation and govern- 
ment of the world ! and when we theo- 
retically admit the existence of intelligent 
design in the unfolding of the history of 
the race, how often we act as though we 
believed that that design contemplated 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 43 

little beyond brilliant intellect, political 
grandeur, material wealth, and the gaiety 
of nations ! If we are co-workers with 
God, let us often remind ourselves of His 
ideal, consult His plan and programme, 
and strive toward His purpose, which is 
altogether spiritual, holy, and beautiful. 
To realise the kingdom of righteousness 
in our own breast, and to build it up 
amongst men, must be recognised as the 
supreme end of life. 

In the building of a great palace or 
temple large numbers of masons, car- 
penters, plumbers, painters, and porters 
are occupied ; each worker carries out 
some fraction of the architect's mighty 
plan, and together they embody his ideal 
in tangible fulfilment. We might easily 
imagine that a great city is a great chaos 
in which each worker pursues his indi- 
vidual ends without any relation to the 
rest, without any community of interests, 
or the attainment of a common end. But 
such a conclusion would be a serious 
mistake. Men of science work in dif- 
ferent spheres which to a cursory 



44 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

observer appear to lie far apart with little 
if any relation. Mechanics, physics, 
chemistry, geology, biology, psychology, 
sociology, ethics, may seem occasionally 
and accidentally to have points of con- 
tact, but in the main they look totally 
distinct and independent. Yet it is 
really not so. The mechanician, the 
physiologist, the chemist, the geologist, 
the astronomer, the artist, the social 
economist, and the moralist are again 
and again startled to find how their 
various spheres are inter-related, how 
the same principles prevail throughout, 
how a discovery in one solves problems 
in another, and how all studies at last 
converge in making clear the interpreta- 
tion of the universe. Indeed, the unifi- 
cation of knowledge is the set purpose of 
philosophy ; the late Herbert Spencer 
aimed to show that in every direction 
there is the working of one force, that 
everywhere evolution follows an identical 
law and order, and that the more or less 
separated truths of science may be fused 
into one wide knowledge expressed in a 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 45 

few definitions, or, perhaps, in a single 
proposition. What is evident in the world 
of thought is equally true in the world of 
action. Men toil in a thousand distinct 
departments, at ten thousand differing 
tasks, and the result seems only a mass 
of isolated strivings ; yet let us be sure 
that the unification of action is a fact 
also, that all kinds of social ministries 
are vitally related, and that one divine 
co-ordinating Mind directs our divided 
and confused activities to a definite and 
an inexpressibly glorious end. As all 
schools of sincere students conspire to 
establish the final philosophy which shall 
explain all ; so all types of noble workers 
— educational, commercial, industrial, 
political, artistic, scientific — unite in 
bringing in that ultimate civilisation 
which shall crown all. 

The workers must not despise or 
disparage one another, nor must any- 
one thus treat himself or his task. 
Nothing shows our short-sightedness 
more than the habit of mutual deprecia- 
tion and exclusion. In any particular 



•46 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

sphere of service how the workers fall 
into this sad fault ! No two workers have 
work exactly alike, in some real way the 
individual task is unique; but we are 
impatient with each other, we wish to 
impose our style upon the rest, the 
science that is not ours is the " dismal 
science," and discouraging, detractive 
criticism rages in every vocation. How 
the various spheres of human activity 
fail to appreciate each other ! The pure 
scientists cherish something like con- 
tempt for the politicians ; the bookman 
looks down upon the bagman; profes- 
sional dignities exclude tradesmen ; men 
of action are impatient with theorisers ; 
the utilitarian scoffs at the aesthete ; 
and the white-handed avoid the labourer. 
How blind we are! All are called of 
God ; He hath given us our place and 
work as it hath pleased Him ; and who 
may despise any of His servants or say 
that their appointments are vain ? When 
in the creation of the world God ope- 
rated alone, He knew nothing of great or 
small ; He made hidden things as superb 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 47 

as the star that glows on the forehead 
of the morning, and lavished on minute 
things the splendour of suns : the works 
of God do not permit the thought of 
meanness ; this or that may seem to us 
of little consequence, but it is really 
grand or it would not have been there. 
Now that we are " God's fellow-workers,'' 
let us remember this, and honour every 
social colleague however humble, and 
rank highly every contribution to the 
common weal down to the two mites 
of the poor, the weak, and the unskilled. 
Let each, then, in his place faithfully 
and industriously realise the splendid 
conception of the Master-Builder. Kings 
and princes ought to find their occupa- 
tion in making a better world, or what 
are they for? Statesmen, magistrates, 
mayors, aldermen, and councillors possess 
power and glory that they may help the 
community in all intellectual and moral 
things ; the thought that the main duty 
of the city fathers is to make possible to 
the multitude a pure and happy life, 
ought to inspire and hallow every civic 



48 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

functionary and all his policy. How 
hollow and mocking the parade and pride 
of civic status if this be not the soul of 
it ! Merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, 
ploughmen, craftsmen, and the countless 
toilers of the city should redeem their 
life from vulgarity and contempt by the 
daily vivid realisation of the thought 
that they are " God's fellow- workers." 
It is too often supposed that we serve 
God and our generation more really 
when we attempt some specifically 
pious or philanthropic work — teaching 
in the Sunday school, becoming foreign 
missionaries, or visiting the slums. 
Without in the least depreciating such 
service, let everyone know that in 
prosecuting his daily business he is 
" God's fellow- worker," as really and 
directly as apostles and missionaries are ; 
fulfilling his secular task in the spirit of 
diligence, honour, and helpfulness, he is 
working not merely for bread and gold, 
but securing also truth, justice, and the 
welfare of the commonwealth. In and 
through our buying and selling, building, 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 49 

husbandry, spinning and weaving, the 
weary toil of eyes and hands and feet, 
we are messengers of heaven and saviours 
of our times as was the Carpenter of 
Nazareth, if we only work out our 
manual calling in His spirit. "I sing 
for God," cried Jenny Lind, who did 
not always sing in cathedrals ; " I pray 
with my fingers," said a celebrated 
organist ; and the million toilers of the 
city working in the fear of God and the 
love of their neighbour make shrines of 
workshops and transform rough tools 
into sacred vessels of worship and bless- 
ing. It is comparatively easy for all who 
labour in the fields to feel that they are 
God's auxiliaries, intimately associated 
with Him in the adorning and fruition of 
the world ; the forester, gardener, vint- 
ager, sower, and reaper are so manifestly 
coefficients with Him who gives the sun- 
shine, the dew, and the rain. It is far 
more difficult to realise this fact in the 
city where there is no symbol of God's 
presence, no sign of His working ; 
to recognise His presence in business, 

O.L. D 



50 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

learning, and politics. But He is equally 
with us when we strive to beautify society 
as when we garnish the landscape with 
living gold and perfume it with flowers. 
Here, then, is the grand idea that ought 
to inspire all: God works to save and 
bless His creatures, and we must follow 
as closely as may be His gracious lead. 
We must build up our own character, 
and the world that is to be, with the 
gold, silver, and precious stones of 
spiritual truth, godly virtue, and mani- 
fold charity and sacrifice. 

2. Remember the condition of success 
in the work of life. If " God's fellow- 
workers," we must do our part. The 
immense significance of consecrated 
human activity is here most strikingly 
recognised. We sometimes say in false 
humility, and again in sheer levity, God 
can do without me, He can do without 
any of us. That is hardly the lesson 
taught here. The text signifies that our 
endeavours, gifts, and sacrifices are in- 
dispensable to the carrying out of the 
high ends of the divine government, and 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 51 

that any failure in the agent thwarts or 
delays the supreme design. God requires 
me; and if through indolence, selfishness, 
or wilfulness I fail to act my part, there is 
a flaw, an arrestment, or a failure some- 
where in the building of the city of God. 
u He could not do many mighty works 
there because of their unbelief." Our 
infidelity, disloyalty, or sloth arrests 
the great Worker and His miracles of 
blessing. Although Csesar was a consum- 
mate general, he did not win a battle 
without the private soldier; Michael 
Angelo was a great architect, yet with- 
out " hands " St. Peter's would never 
have been built ; Columbus was the 
most capable of admirals, but without 
his nameless crew America had remained 
a myth : and it has pleased God similarly 
to condition Himself so that His great 
purposes can be fulfilled only through 
the faithful, loving co-operation of His 
privileged creatures. He made the earth 
without us, but the new creation of a 
redeemed humanity which is its flower 
is to be planted and watered by God's 

d2 



52 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

husbandmen. This is a great mystery 
reverently to be laid to heart ; it is the 
clear teaching of the text and many 
similar passages of the New Testament. 
We are not to think of almightiness 
tranquilly bringing to fruition the vast 
scheme of the world's Euler equally well 
with or without us; but to remember 
that in His infinite condescension and 
love He has in some unknown measure 
made His eternal purpose contingent on 
human fidelity. We are sadly too 
familiar with the " strike " of the work- 
man, and the "locking out" of his 
employer, paralysing great enterprise; 
let us beware lest through indifference 
or indulgence we arrest in any degree, 
in either ourselves or society, the work 
of God. 

On the other hand, we must not forget 
our dependence. " God's fellow- workers" 
cannot successfully ignore Him. If we 
cherish any high aim for humanity, the 
religious idea must be brought power- 
fully into civic, political, fiscal, and 
ecclesiastical life. We might as well 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 53 

expect without showers and sunshine to 
turn a wilderness into a garden as expect 
to renew society without the inspirations 
and restraints of a pure religious faith. 
We bless men only as we honour God. 
Ecclesiastics think proudly of their 
splendid organisations and methods, of 
gifted agents and exquisite instruments ; 
yet all are vain unless approved by 
the Spirit of God and converted by 
Him into a flame of fire. Paul plants, 
Apollos waters, but God gives the in- 
crease. Every soldier of the empire was 
important, but what were they all with- 
out Caesar ? Every mason in Italy was 
important, but what were they all with- 
out Michael Angelo? Every sailor on 
the ship was important, but what were 
they all without Columbus? Very won- 
derful is the master-mind ! It turns 
rabbles into armies, and vain strivings 
into blazing triumphs. Ten thousand 
mediocrities do not make a master ; a 
master magnetises ten thousand medio- 
crities into masters. A master-mind is 
essential, and Christ is the Master-Mind 



54 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 



of Christendom ; the eternal truth and 
righteousness, power and grace are re- 
vealed in Him, and we are efficient for 
all high purposes as we are one with 
Him. " Severed from Me, ye can do 
nothing." Without Him ecclesiastics, 
law-makers, schoolmasters, scholars, 
philanthropists, and reformers are a 
chaotic crowd blindly and feebly striving 
after splendid ideals which perpetually 
elude them. Severed from Him, indi- 
viduals, institutions, and nations wither. 
Do we not often pathetically fail because 
we forget the paramount Partner? 

8. Here we find the grand encourage- 
ment in all our generous aspirations and 
effects. " God's fellow-workers." Then 
He will bring the work through. What 
an efficient coadjutor ! In mechanical 
enterprise it is gloriously reassuring to 
know that we are backed up by Nature. 
When we see the flowing tide with us, 
the winds of heaven filling our sails, the 
stars in their courses fighting for us, we 
dismiss anxiety : let us once establish a 
partnership with the mighty laws and 



THE GUILD OF GOD. 55 

forces of the universe and we know what 
confidence means. It is an unspeakable 
consolation to a commercial man to know 
that the Bank of England will stand 
by him. And when in any difficult under- 
taking we are upheld by the State, and 
can draw freely on the national Exche- 
quer, we smile all day and sleep all night. 
But how perfect the peace that ought to 
fill our soul when we remember that 
God is with us in our great aspirations, 
and that His promise and fulness are 
pledged to bring us through ! He is 
never a sleeping partner ; His matchless 
and tireless energy prevails at every 
point to make His counsel stand. He 
who called us to perfect holiness of 
spirit and life will also do it. The 
favoured students in the old studios 
who were privileged to work on the 
same marble or canvas with a famous 
chief, would fear no final failure in 
their collaboration ; the magic hand of 
the master would strike the initial line 
of beauty, correct the false, strengthen 
that which was weak, supply what was 



56 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

lacking, and give the finishing touches 
which cancel every defect of the under- 
study, and confer the ideal grace. So, 
if we faithfully do our part, grace shall 
eliminate our errors, and bring our weak 
strivings to a consummation more glorious 
far than it has entered into our mind to 
conceive. And He who has called us to 
serve the race will in many ways, in 
secret and unexpected ways, come to our 
rescue, and make our life-work fruitful 
beyond all our imagination and hope. 



rv. 

FAITH AND POLICY. 

M Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river 
Ah&va, that we might humble ourselves before 
our God, to seek of Him a straight way, for us, 
and for our little ones, and for all our substance. 
For I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of 
soldiers and horsemen to help us against the 
enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto 
the king, saying, The hand of our Grod is upon 
all them that seek Him, for good ; but His power 
and His wrath is against all them that forsake 
Him. So we fasted and besought our Grod for 
this : and He was entreated of us." — Ezba viii. 
21—23 (E.Y.), 

Ezra resided at Babylon during the 
reign of Artaxerxes, with whom the 
learned and pious priest seems to have 
been a favourite. He obtained royal 
leave to visit Jerusalem, then lying in 
ruin, taking with him priests, Levites, 
singers, porters, and a large company, 
together with a considerable offering of 



58 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

gold and silver, and silver vessels, con- 
tributed not only by the Babylonian Jews, 
but also by the king himself and his 
councillors. The ti^e arrived for the 
departure of the exiles, and then arose 
the dilemma expressed in the teit. The 
journey from Babylon to Jerusalem was 
long and dangerous, and prudence sug- 
gested that the returning patriots should 
secure an adequate military guard to 
accompany them ; but Ezra was ashamed 
to ask for a band of soldiers because he 
had boasted to the king of Jehovah's 
power and faithfulness. There was 
really nothing inconsistent between the 
testimony that Ezra had borne to the 
divine power and faithfulness, and a 
request for a bodyguard, yet it was pos- 
sible that the request might be miscon- 
strued, and therefore, yielding to a fine 
sensitiveness for the honour of God and 
the welfare of His cause, the noble priest 
resolved to transcend policy and trust 
everything to the unseen horses and 
chariots of fire. 
Occasions still arise when devout men 



FAITH AND POLICY. 59 

find themselves in similar perplexity, 
and when they must determine whether 
they will trust themselves and their 
interests to ordinary human safeguards 
or rest simply on pure faith in the 
unseen. The dilemma is not always 
equally sharp and obvious, but devout 
men are from time to time perplexed as 
to how far they ought to confide in God 
without enlisting human aid and expe- 
dients, and how far they ought to avail 
themselves of those methods and instru- 
ments in which the ordinary man puts 
his whole trust. 

1. As a grand rule godly life must 
follow prudential lines. A course of con- 
duct recommended by sound worldly 
policy ought not lightly to be disre- 
garded. We are apt to think and speak 
lightly of the counsels of human reason, 
and the natural safeguards of life, health, 
and property ; yet sound policy is neither 
more nor less than a just interpretation 
of the principles and programme of the 
government of God, and is so far reli- 
gious. It is most necessary that good 



60 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

men should remember that very much 
in the laws, arrangements, and agents 
of human society is of divine ordination 
and authority. Secular and prudential 
as much in the ordering of public affairs 
may seem, at bottom such regulations 
are really religious; whether we think 
deeply enough to find the religion is 
another thing. We speak contemptuously 
of " the arm of flesh," and yet the arm 
of flesh may be the arm of God. The 
truly wise habitually recognise the 
validity and sacredness of the statutes, 
officers, and instruments which guarantee 
the security of men, and make possible 
the happiness and progress of the world. 
Through many generations, a vast multi- 
tudinousness of experience, and almost 
infinite sacrifices and sufferings, men 
have discovered what is safest and best 
in matters of health, business, and 
government; and to ignore rules of 
action approved by the discipline of ages 
is as if the mariner in the black night 
should ignore the lighthouse stars, or as 
if with an ominous sky he should refuse to 



FAITH AND POLICY. 61 

recognise the storm-drum and to put 
into the sheltering bay. In all his 
affairs the godly man must defer to 
prudence, which, properly understood, 
is the intellectual perception of what 
amid the complexity of circumstance is 
best to be done. Prudence does not 
wear a splendid and mysterious halo 
like piety, but she is of the same royal 
lineage. 

God-fearing people may without in- 
consistency claim the protection of the 
magistrate and the benefit of the law. 
The most spiritual of men, alike in 
ancient and modern times, have sought 
the intervention of the judgment-seat, 
and they were abundantly justified in so 
doing. It is not necessary to hold that 
every by-law, or even that every law on 
the statute-book, is of divine authority ; 
but we may fairly recognise in our 
national jurisprudence as a whole the 
voice of God, the authority of Sinai, 
and with peculiar propriety just men 
may claim its protection whenever their 
rights are seriously in question. u The 



62 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

powers that be are ordained of God," 
and His children are well within the 
proprieties when they invoke the inter- 
ference of the magistrate and police. 
" The strong arm of the law " may seem 
a very carnal limb, and yet be God'a 
right arm for all that. Again, in busi- 
ness life the godly man betrays no 
unbelief when he takes into account 
all those prudential considerations 
approved by old experience. Eeligious 
men must not presume on a guardian- 
ship unknown to other men, and in con- 
sequence neglect worldly caution. A 
Marine Insurance Company at Cadiz 
once took the Virgin Mary into formal 
partnership, covenanting to set aside her 
portion of profits for the enrichment of 
her shrine in that city, not doubting 
that she would protect every vessel in 
which she had such a manifest interest ; 
the infatuated company underwrote ships 
of all sorts at reduced rates, and forth- 
with came to grief. The same snare 
entices spiritually-minded men to-day ; 
dispensing with ordinary circumspection, 



FAITH AND POLICY. 68 

they attempt to conduct their business 
on what they consider a religious basis, 
when they ought to know that the most 
religious basis is the sound commercial 
basis. Good souls regard it as some- 
thing like a denial of the faith to insure 
against accident, fire, or burglars, or to 
make provision against sickness and age. 
To be ringed round by various policies 
appears to them as the expression of a 
subtle, serious scepticism. Yet the life 
of our Lord furnishes us with precious 
light on this very question, showing the 
legitimacy and even the obligation of 
remaining true to common sense until 
some extraordinary moment calls for an 
act of faith, which does not contradict 
common sense, but transcends it. The 
devil "led Him to Jerusalem, and set 
Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and 
said unto Him, If Thou art the Son of 
God, cast Thyself down from hence : for 
it is written, He shall give His angels 
charge concerning Thee, to guard Thee : 
and, On their hands they shall bear 
Tnee up, lest haply Thou dash Thy foot 



64 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

against a stone. And Jesus answer- 
ing said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God." Most 
specious is presumption when coloured 
and disguised by religious motive, feeling, 
and language ! And yet the distance is 
infinite between the fanaticism which 
thus presumes, and the rational faith in 
God which is prepared to leap into the 
darkest gulf upon a clear indication of 
the divine will, but which until that 
indication is given plants its feet on 
solid ground and takes no liberties. 

A Christian nation may need the 
"band of soldiers." There is so much 
in war contrary to the Christian spirit 
that many Christian people denounce it 
in any case. They will trust everything 
that a great, free people hold dear, to 
the wall of fire which surrounds the 
saints; the officer in blue may guard 
their personal property, but the one in 
red must not defend the interests of the 
nation. A gentleman strongly averse to 
the military was walking in his garden 
with a friend, and whilst doing so 



FAITH AND POLICY. 65 

vehemently denounced the military 
forces, maintaining that God will pre- 
serve the righteous nation that trusts in 
Him. " What is that above your garden 
wall?" inquired the friend. "Barbed 
wire," responded the pacific gardener ; 
" I have been annoyed by trespassers, 
but this wire keeps them out effectually, 
and you see I have just added a few 
fresh strands." The army and navy 
constitute the barbed wire of the national 
vineyard. It will be a delightful daj T 
when we can dwell in cities without walls, 
and it will come; but, alas! although 
the day is dawning it has not yet broken. 
It is a painful necessity that we some- 
times draw the sword, and when nothing 
else remains we must defend ourselves 
without shame or fear. Liberty and 
humanity demand fighting forces, and, 
therefore, as the American philanthropist 
remarked, " Gunpowder sometimes smells 
sweet." 

The saint without anomaly may avail 
himself of the physician's aid. The 
system known as " Christian Science " 

C.L. B 



66 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

which has recently attained notoriety 
teaches that religious men in dealing 
with sickness ought altogether to discard 
science. The sick saint is to appeal to 
higher laws, to invoke invisible ministers 
of health, to find in the action of will 
and imagination ethereal balms of strange 
virtue, and to be made whole by myste- 
rious processes inscrutable to students of 
physiology. According to this view, the 
presence of the physician in the chamber 
of the good man is equivalent to a 
disavowal of the faith, a bit of tangible 
atheism, a thing as heathenish as the 
calling in the medicine-man of a savage 
tribe. We ought to be ashamed to 
summon medical aid seeing that we 
have boasted of the hand of our God 
being upon us for good. But this view 
throughout is miserably mistaken. The 
whole conception springs out of a lack of 
appreciation of the divinity that pervades 
all things, and betrays blindness to the 
glorious fact that natural laws and pro- 
cesses are the appointments of God and 
the channels of His grace, which, indeed, 



FAITH AND POLICY, 67 

they are. We must not confine the 
grace of God to the sacraments of the 
altar ; all the gifts of Nature, all the 
specifics of science, all the ministries of 
knowledge and experience are sacra- 
mental also, and to be received and 
realised by faith with thanksgiving. 
There is no Christian science except as 
all true science is Christian, and the 
cultured physician, working closely on 
the lines which condition health, is a 
loyal servant of God and humanity in 
whom the pious sufferer has special 
grounds for trust. John Wesley tells 
that on a certain occasion he was 
"cured by sulphur and supplication," 
and all men who are wise as they are 
good will practise the dual treatment. 
To refuse medical aid and its prescrip- 
tions, trusting wholly in God, may by 
some be mistaken for sublime faith, but 
it is really practical atheism, ignoring as 
it does the established order of God. 

The Christian Church at given junc- 
tures may claim the succour of the 
State. We are solemnly warned against 

b 2 



68 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

invoking the " secular arm," but there 
is more divinity in biceps than some 
think On the ground of equity the 
missionary may claim national inter- 
vention at least equally with the trader. 
The trader is not always acceptable to 
the native government, yet he is privi- 
leged by treaties, hedged about by 
threatening circumscriptions, and if he 
should suffer in person or property is 
liberally compensated ; but the mis- 
sionary, in the opinion of many, must 
enter upon his high and disinterested 
work entirely at his own risk. Political 
and military guarantees are boldly de- 
manded in the interests of commerce, 
yet the very parties claiming protection 
for their merchandise howled at the 
thought that the Government should 
shield the missionary, his wife, and little 
ones. A band of soldiers must encircle 
with a ring of steel the chests of opium, 
whilst the devoted men and women who 
carry across the wilderness the elements 
of a new and higher civilisation, who 
bear the sacred vessels of godliness, 



FAITH AND POLICY. 69 

truth and mercy, are to be abandoned 
to the wrath of the heathen. Let re- 
ligious men, on occasion, claim the law, 
the institutions, the forces of the land, 
in the higher interests of the race. It is 
no more contradictory to claim imperial 
protection for spiritual work than it is 
to instal a lightning conductor on the 
steeple of the church. 

2. The crisis comes when in pure faith 
iv e must venture all upon God. " I was 
ashamed to ask the king for a band 
of soldiers." Ezra was jealous for the 
cause of God, for the glory of God ; 
and lest he should seem to impugn the 
divine faithfulness, or to act in a manner 
that might retard the restoration of 
Israel, he was prepared to brave serious 
personal peril. Let us be careful, how- 
ever, that we do not represent prudence 
and faith as necessarily disparate and 
contradictory states of mind and pro- 
grammes of action. After all, faith is 
only a higher prudence, and as such the 
New Testament recognises it. "By faith 
Noah, being warned of God concerning 



70 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

things not seen as yet, moved with 
godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving 
of his house " (Heb. xi. 7). "Moved 
with godly fear," moved by prudential 
considerations, by a wise foresight. 
" Prudence is not named as the source, 
but as the reward of his conduct. By 
his believing obedience he came to be at 
last the one who was truly prudent. A 
truth of great practical importance ! He 
who, like a child, blindly follows the will 
of God, regardless of all consequences, is 
the one who is truly prudent ; for he 
builds on the eternal, and He will never 
allow His own to come to shame. He, 
on the contrary, who in the fear of man 
reckons when it will be profitable to 
follow the Lord, he who first anxiously 
weighs the consequences, will with his 
false wisdom assuredly come to shame."* 
Prudence is that state of mind in 
which we note, consider, and estimate 
whatever is perceptible by the senses; 
faith is the faculty which discerns laws 
and facts not discernible by the senses ; 
* Ebrard. 



FAITH AND POLICY. 71 

but the two operations and their conclu- 
sions are not necessarily contradictory. 
Faith is a higher judiciousness, a know- 
ledge of and confidence in an established 
order less understood, yet just as real 
and trustworthy as the material order 
and its sequences so familiar to the 
vDommon experience. Faith is not an 
appeal to chance, a game of hazard, a 
leap in the dark ; it is a rational con- 
fidence in higher laws and forces which 
have been demonstrated and vindicated 
in the experience of the wisest and purest 
of mankind. 

It is our solemn duty and privilege on 
rare occasions to trust in God without 
any of those adventitious aids which 
ordinarily are obligatory. In matters of 
physical health and safety we may take 
our soul in our hands. In the conduct 
of business are crises when we are 
justified in ventures not in accordance 
with approved utilitarian canons. Ex- 
ceptional circumstances may render it a 
clear Christian duty to waive our civil 
rights. Whilst the Church of Christ is 



72 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

entitled to State intervention equally 
with commercial and political pioneers, 
there are junctures when we most honour 
our Master and best serve His cause by- 
trusting entirely to His unseen arm. 
And in our individual life also are occa- 
sions when, moved by high considera- 
tions, we must dispense with human 
instrumentality, ordinary expedients, and 
the various provisions of the practical 
judgment, trusting God to take care of 
us and of His name and work. 

But let us be sure that we are moved 
by the highest considerations. No one 
can well advise us in these critical hours; 
it is then that we realise most vividly 
the sense of personal responsibility. The 
Spirit of God alone can be our coun- 
sellor, and no meaner thought must 
interfere with His illumination. Not in 
levity, temper, pride, selfishness, indo- 
lence, or presumption must we decline 
the conventional arrangements, or the 
natural safeguards which guarantee 
public and individual welfare : it must 
ever be with deep seriousness that we 



FAITH AND POLICY. 73 

swim off into the azure, and trust every- 
thing to our wings. " Then I proclaimed 
a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we 
might humble ourselves before our God, 
to seek of Him a straight way for us, 
ani for our little ones, and for all our 
substance." In this spirit should we 
poise ourselves in the air, and when we 
do so God will not fail to honour the 
momentous venture of faith. " Then 
we departed from the river of Ahava . . . 
to go unto Jerusalem ; and the hand of 
our God was upon us, and He delivered 
us from the hand of the enemy and the 
lier in wait by the way/' 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS- 

"And the king made of the almug-trees 
pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the 
king's house, harps also and psalteries for the 
singers."-— 1 Knros x. 12. 

The pillars and psalteries were hewn 
and carved out of the same tree, and so 
we will regard the text as a reminder of 
the fact that in all accomplished cha- 
racter inhere strength and sweetness. 

I. Strength. " Pillars for the house 
of the Lord, and for the king's house." 
The almug-tree, or sandalwood - tree, 
was close in grain, firm in fibre, sound 
and incorruptible, only such timber 
being fit for pillars. And, first of all, 
the people of God must be strong and 
established in spirit. The saints of the 
Old Testament were heroic, and the 
saints of the New Testament not a whit 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 75 

less so. Critics of the blood-and-iron 
school affect to prefer the former, but 
such preference is based on entire mis- 
conception. The saints of the New 
Testament have put off the carnal 
armour of sword and shield, and no 
longer figure on fields of battle ; yet 
in essential strength, endurance, and 
courage they are in no wise inferior to 
Mosaic, Davidic, or Maccabaean saints. 
Our Lord Himself was distinguished by 
sublime faith and bravery ; the writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews places Him 
in the front of the procession of the 
heroes of the old world, and His apostles 
and disciples soon showed that they 
shared in His supreme strength and 
invincibility, resisting unto blood, striv- 
ing against sin. In the various catalogues 
of the virtues which occur in the New 
Testament the virile, athletic, military 
virtues are as frankly recognised as in 
the most austere systems of Greece and 
Eome; milder moral traits, which receive 
no recognition in the ethical codes of 
the classic peoples, are acknowledged 



76 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

and extolled, but the manly, severe 
virtues are never forgotten. This strength 
of conviction, sternness of principle, and 
constancy of purpose, this solidity and 
force of mind and action, formed the 
basis of that beauty and sweetness of 
character which charmed the world in 
the primitive Christians. 

Without strength there is no grace of 
life. 

Without depth and thoroughness 
character does not attain sweetness. 
We scoff at beauty as being " skin deep/ , 
but this is a consolation of philosophy 
in which the consolation is much in 
excess of the philosophy, for beauty 
springs from the roots and foundations 
of things. The loveliness of the earth 
is the expression of forces operating 
below the surface ; the bloom of the 
human face is the result of the health 
of organs concealed in the depths of the 
body; and loveliness and sweetness of 
character spring from the soul — spring 
from a soul pure and strong. They 
" outwardly appear beautiful," was our 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 77 

Lord's description of the sepulchres and 
saints of His day ; and such a descrip- 
tion forcibly indicates the extreme 
unsatisfactoriness of shallow beauty. 
A great painter of antiquity remarked 
of the picture of his rival, " Not being 
able to make it beautiful, he has made 
it rich." By a lavish use of colour he 
had sought to atone for the vision and 
magic of genius. This was the trick of 
the Pharisee. What was lacking in 
depth and reality he attempted to dis- 
guise by superficial decoration; and in 
all generations there have been moralists 
who have sought, by shallow ceremony 
and etiquette, to hide the lack of essence 
and inspiration. But such affectations 
of grace never long deceive ; the falsetto 
is painfully apparent. 

Without firmness and vigour, to put 
it in another light, character does not 
attain beauty and sweetness. Beality, 
solidity, and energy underlie all satisfy- 
ing dignity of manner and winsomeness 
of conduct. Hidden within the leaves 
are stout branches, the graceful figure 



78 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

is sustained by the firm skeleton, the 
foundation of the greensward is in the 
granite, and the basis of flowers is often 
iron and flint ; so genuine charm of 
character is founded in serious views, 
strong conscientiousness, unbending 
integrity, and uncompromising purity of 
mind and heart. There is no short and 
easy way to grace of life ; its secret goes 
a long way back, even to the health of 
the soul. Pleasant people often fail to 
satisfy us; on the contrary, they dis- 
appoint, and even irritate us. The truth 
is, they give the impression of super- 
ficiality and feebleness. Their amia- 
bility is sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
of impotence ; they are gracious without 
grit, too apologetic, they lack earnest- 
ness and conscientiousness, they shirk 
duty which involves unpleasantness and 
sacrifice, and we come at length to feel 
that their affability is a mere sentiment, 
an artifice, a prettiness of behaviour 
rather than an expression of sterling 
grace. Depth, thoroughness, and vitality 
are absent, and without them felicities 



TRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 79 

of speech, style, and manner are the 
reflecting colours of the chameleon which 
perish whilst they shine. Principle, 
affirmation, and positiveness, together 
with a prevailing sense of duty and 
capacity for struggle and sacrifice, are 
essential to sustained attractiveness of 
character. Sweetness soon cloys if it is 
not honey out of a lion. The delicacy 
of the rose offends if not grounded on 
the rock. The sparkle that delights is 
the sparkle of the diamond. Frost-work 
on a bride-cake is one thing, lily-work 
on a pillar is another. 

Seeking to make life sweet we must 
first make the heart sound, for out of 
radical truth and organic purity blossom 
real courtesy, gentleness, and the mani- 
fold graces of life. " Whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely." 
The lovely is the flower of the pure. 
Do not paint the face, cleanse the heart ; 
do not coax your dress, get a better 
figure ; do not revise your etiquette, be 
transformed in the spirit of your mind. 
Profundity, robustness, freedom, and 



80 INSPIEATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

harmony are at the root of fine charac- 
ter. " Out of the heart are the issues 
of life," and in the love of God, the 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
fellowship of the Holy Spirit, do we find 
the secret of satisfying and abiding 
sweetness. 

As there is no real grace of life with- 
out strength, so there is no efficient 
service without it. " He made pillars 
for the house of the Lord." To become 
efficient for high and holy service in 
God's Church we must possess posi- 
tive qualities, elements of strength and 
stability, independence of thought, sin- 
cerity and assurance, uprightness and 
steadfastness, power of patience and sacri- 
fice. Fussy men in all the denominations 
seem to be pillars, but, in fact, are poor 
creatures counting for little. The secret 
of efficiency is reality. Without sincerity, 
strength, and strenuousness, service is 
shallow and sterile. It is no easy thing 
to be a veritable power and blessing in a 
religious community. " Him that over- 
cometh will I make a pillar in the temple 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 81 

of My God, and he shall go no more 
out." Only he who in his own per- 
sonality overcometh the temptations of 
sense, the vanities of the world, and the 
wiles of the devil, is fit to serve in the 
kingdom of God, and only his service 
avails. 

" And he made pillars for the king's 
house." If we would render real and 
permanent service to the State, we must 
possess the strong, fine qualities of the 
Christian character. Men utterly desti- 
tute of sincere conviction and moral 
principle fancy that nothing more is 
needed to become a pillar of State than 
to secure a majority at the poll ; but we 
do the commonwealth little good except 
as we take into it the spirit of godliness, 
the genius of righteousness, the power 
of self-sacrifice. We cannot make a 
pillar of bamboo ; there must be some- 
thing in it of heart of oak, solidity of 
marble, texture of iron and bronze. He 
who would become a pillar in Church or 
State must first be a pillar in deed and 
truth. He who covets to become a real 

c.l, p 



82 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

blessing to society must first attain 
knowledge, a true heart, conviction, and 
character built on the rock. The most 
important column in this world is the 
vertebral column ; it took ages to fashion 
it, and nothing good, great, or lasting is 
possible without it. A backboneless 
acrobat is a treasure in a circus, but 
little use or ornament elsewhere. Wis- 
dom, principle, resolution, and persist- 
ence are the articulations of an effective 
spine, the indispensable qualifications of 
true workers for God and humanity. 

II. Sweetness. "Harps also and psal- 
teries for singers." The wood that 
furnished the pillars shed perfume and 
made music. The New Testament, which 
enjoins the manly and martial virtues 
as imperatively as Stoicism did, enjoins 
also " whatsoever things are lovely " ; 
it is not, as some theological interpreta- 
tions would lead us to suspect, a sort of 
jungle planted with razor-grass, stinging 
nettles, cacti, and briar, with an arau- 
caria for its tree of life ; it is much rather 
an enchanted garden, whose flowers are 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 83 

*,he delight of the eyes, velvet to the 
touch, and whose fragrance, to use 
Bacon's words, comes and goes like 
the warblings of music. We are all 
conscious of the singular beauty of 
our Lord — nothing of Him was loud, 
harsh, or hard ; and it is the privilege 
of His disciples to remind us of His 
patience, forbearance, and courtliness. 
Now it is often alleged that it is exactly 
here that many Christians are seriously 
at fault ; they are found to be rough, 
rude, and intolerable, painfully lacking 
sweetness and light ; not sandalwood at 
all, but knotted, gnarled, and excru- 
ciating. 

First of all, let us enter a sincere 
apology for some of the saints who 
are flouted by cultured people. The 
very men who excite the anger of the 
fastidious, if better known, known as 
they really are, known as God knows 
them, would be confessed true gentle- 
men : the coarseness is in the bark, the 
satinwood within. None need wonder at 
their unpolished exterior, it is sufficiently 

F 2 



84 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

explained by their origin, calling, and 
associations, by their lack of education 
and opportunity; but once know them 
intimately, and their spirit, tastes, and 
manners prove wonderfully delicate. Mr. 
St. John, the naturalist, relates that 
when exploring the recesses of the High- 
lands he frequently came into contact 
with the natives who were living in the 
rude Highland way, and at first he 
thought them morose, unobservant, and 
stupid; but as he continued to live 
amongst them the truth appeared : they 
appreciated their majestic hills and lakes 
as keenly as their visitor did ; in their 
soul was the love of beauty and in their 
lips the law of kindness — they were 
thinkers, poets, saints. In a book recently 
published, entitled " The Woman who 
Toils," by Mrs. John Van Vorst, in which 
a pathetic picture of the coarse and 
painful condition of life of some Ameri- 
can factory girls is given, the authoress 
repeatedly notes the peculiar gentle- 
ness and refinement of the most abject 
workers. Christians who ruffle the polite, 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 85 

and who are the butt of sestheticism, are 
often the gentlest of men and the love- 
liest of women. Forbidding they may- 
be to the hasty glance and superficial 
judgment of the smart set, but it is the 
exterior only that is unpolished : which, 
after all, is infinitely better than moral 
rottenness hidden by the art and mystery 
of social gilding. Harriet Martineau, 
writing about the disappointing revela- 
tion in Lockhart's " Life of the true 
Walter Scott," ends with this just re- 
flection : " If great men fall below our 
expectation, let it be remembered that 
there is another point of view from 
which the matter should be looked at — 
that we gain thus a new sense of the 
glory and beauty of virtue and incor- 
ruptibleness in the humble matter of 
everyday life." Unscrupulous exhibitors 
send to the flower-show blooms which 
quite eclipse their modest neighbours; 
but when the prizes are adjudged, the 
pretentious flowers are rejected because 
it is discovered that their leaves and 
petals have been cunningly doctored : 



86 INSPIEATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

so the great Day will doom many a 
manufactured article, and confer the 
final reward upon flowers of the field 
whose whole charm is their truth and 
sweetness. 

Let it, however, be frankly acknow- 
ledged that Christian people are some- 
times uncommonly unlovely, as unlovely 
as they are made, nay, as unlovely as 
they make themselves, being artists in 
ugliness. They are sour, narrow, boorish, 
and exasperating, priding themselves on 
their unpleasantness. The type is far 
too common, and gives sad occasion to 
the enemy to blaspheme. How is this 
disagreeable fact to be explained ? Too 
many pious people cherish a false and 
unscriptural ideal; they recognise con- 
science as the chief element of character, 
and think that graciousness can be 
cultivated only at the expense of con- 
science. Therefore they magnify con- 
science at every turn, denying the claims 
of grace, and blurring in themselves 
whatever beauty of holiness may tend to 
reveal itself. A perverse conception of 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 87 

the Puritan character and habit does us 
immense harm — deforming sanctuaries, 
impoverishing worship, and blighting 
character. We all know uncouth brethren 
who have sufficient uprightness to sup- 
ply with pillars the temples of Karnac, 
or the halls of the Alhambra, but whose 
grim constitution would not furnish 
grace enough to suggest a fiddlestick. 
No incompatibility exists between graci- 
ousness and principle. Properly under- 
stood, conscience is at once the basis of 
character and the secret of beauty. 
According to Jean Tisseur's epigram, 
" Man is an ornamented conscience." 
The ideal Christian man is — a conscience 
adorned by, and adorning, the doctrine 
of God our Saviour in all things. 
Sombreness and unmannerliness do the 
conscience no service ; they give it a false 
bias, and often survive its extinction. 
One who is born from above ought not to 
be guilty of bad breeding. We believe in 
the uprightness and downrightness of 
the pillar ; let us admire also the curve of 
the harp, and its sensitive strings : we 



88 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

magnify the spinal column, yet let us 
not forget how that main pillar in the 
house of life is veiled and garnished by 
manifold graces and flexibilities. 

Let the sweetness of Christian charac- 
ter find expression in the house. One 
of the most pleasing aspects of modern 
times is the presence of art in lowly 
homes, giving the touch of grace to every 
humblest, household, necessary thing ; 
delightful manifestations of skill and 
ornament appearing in the wood, lead, 
iron, and common crockery of the cottage. 
But if art thus makes the house into the 
house beautiful, what will not gentleness, 
considerateness, and politeness do for 
the household? "The aim of art is to 
express the sublime in the trivial," said 
J. F. Millet ; if in the home we reveal 
our sublime faith and righteousness in 
doing gracefully many little things, the 
home will be far brighter than it some- 
times is. Conscience expressed in corro- 
sives and godliness in gaucherie are 
not the happiest demonstrations of the 
Christian spirit. A house in which 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 89 

there is nothing but reason, conscience, 
and duty is one of the most forbidding 
places of a trying world. Having reared 
our pillars and buttresses, let us carve 
out a psaltery and make life pleasant for 
all that are in the house. 

Sweetness is equally called for in the 
business sphere. Christians fairly graci- 
ous elsewhere put the softer qualities 
aside when they enter upon business 
scenes and relationships, as if only a 
certain severity of temper suited that 
department. They do violence to their 
finer instincts out of a mistaken notion 
that grace is misplaced in business. 
Although in heart sincerely kind and 
generous, they feel obliged to keep on 
hand a ready fund of harsh words and 
ominous gestures for the offensive and 
defensive tactics of business, just as 
some of the magnificent orchids of 
Guiana are garrisoned by a swarm of 
ants, hairy-spiders, cockroaches, and 
centipedes which on occasion troop 
forth from the depths of the flower. It 
is a mistake. Nowhere is gentleness 



90 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

more effective than in the shop, the 
warehouse, and the market-place. Silk 
has a fibre more tenacious than that 
of steel, and the graciousness of a strong 
man secures him most commanding 
influence. Fine behaviour and con- 
siderate speech in masters and men are 
infinitely more effective for all purposes 
of advantage and peace than explosions 
of vulgar wrath on the one side or a 
hostile habit on the other. Whilst you 
are sure of the hard, firm columns, 
without which successful business is 
impossible — precision, punctuality, dili- 
gence, economy, and subordination — 
bring in also the psaltery, and show that 
the poetry and music of humanity have 
a place even there, and that they can 
covert stern duty into delight, and make 
the inexorable conditions of life a disci- 
pline of what in our nature is noblest 
and best. 

In our intercourse with all men let us 
covet and cultivate this grace of spirit 
and life. A sceptical writer was rguing 
the other day in one of the magazines 



STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS. 91 

that the old evidences for Christianity 
were discredited, and that now its hold 
upon the world was entirely owing to 
" the beauty of the character of Jesus 
Christ.' ' We need not for a moment 
concede that the old evidences on which 
Christianity relied are abandoned, and 
yet we may welcome the homage which 
is thus paid to the transcending loveli- 
ness of our Lord. There is a strange, 
world-captivating, world-subduing power 
in the glory and sweetness of the mystic 
Eose. Ought we not to give beauty a 
fuller recognition in our ideal ? Ought 
we not more ardently to seek in deeper 
truth and purity of heart that mingled 
might and mellowness, majesty and 
mildness, greatness and grace which 
invest our Lord with invincible and 
perennial fascination ? 

** Strong Son of God, immortal Love," 

make us partakers of Thy strength and 
tenderness, of that glory which Thou 
hadst with the Father before the world 
was ! 



VL 

THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 

" For tliis is rig]lt. ,, — Eph. vi. 1. 

I. The Standard of Christianity. 
" Eight " is a law of conduct not based 
on accident or convenience ; it arises out 
of the depths of eternity, and is compre- 
hended in the depths of our nature. A 
secularist writes thus : " Where numbers 
of men are gathered together, they have 
the right to agree among themselves as 
to what things may or may not be done 
— in other words, to erect a standard of 
morality adapted to their needs" (Nisbet). 
This is not the view of the text. It 
assumes an absolute and eternal law, 
obligatory on all men, everywhere ; it 
goes back to the divine, the infinite, the 
immutable. We cannot fix the time of 
day by agreeing among ourselves ; the 
clock declares the hour, and the sun 
regulates the clock. The sun is the 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 93 

standard of time, and it would be folly 
indeed to attempt to ignore the sun, and 
fix the hours by caprice. We cannot fix 
the measure of a thing by agreeing 
amongst ourselves. The yard measure 
declares the length and breadth of a 
thing, and the astronomer determines 
the standard yard by the motion of a 
star. The star supplies the standard 
of measurement, and it were folly arbi- 
trarily to attempt to regulate the yard 
stick. We cannot determine the scale of 
colour by agreeing amongst ourselves ; 
the rainbow is the standard of colour. 
We can never ignore or override the great 
facts of Nature ; they were before us,they 
persist in spite of us, and our safety and 
happiness are secured by strictly observ- 
ing and obeying these facts. So the 
rules which regulate personal conduct 
and social duty cannot be prescribed by 
an agreement among ourselves; the 
canon of conduct is decreed by the facts 
and laws of the eternal universe of which 
we are citizens. Duty is sublime, 
founded on eternal relationships ; con- 
science is the index of the divine and 



94 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

supernatural ; right differs essentially 
from might ; justice and convenience are 
terms wide asunder by the breadth of the 
heavens ; righteousness is the law of the 
unchanging universe, the will of Him in 
whom is no variableness, neither shadow 
of turning. 

If, then, the rule of right is the declared 
will of God, where must we look for that 
declaration ? 

Partially it is expressed in Nature. 
" Obey your parents, for this is right " ; 
i.e. it is enjoined by instinct and natural 
law. Certain great rules of conduct are 
inferred from the constitution of things, 
and suggested by the mind itself. A 
more perfect knowledge of ourselves 
and of the world tends to make clearer 
the path of life and duty. Here is the 
higher ministry of science. The revela- 
tion of the divine will is further disclosed 
in the law of Sinai. " Which is the first 
commandment with promise." Those 
who are best acquainted with nature are 
most entirely convinced of the ambiguity 
of its moral teachings. A century ago in- 
fluential thinkers taught that nature was 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 95 

abundantly sufficient to guide mankind 
into all truth, and that any other revelation 
was superfluous. That point of view has, 
however, now been abandoned. Distin- 
guished naturalists are satisfied that if 
we would reach the higher principles of 
action we must ignore nature, whose 
operations disclose the most serious 
injustice, selfishness, and cruelty; and 
students who do not share this extreme 
opinion are free to acknowledge that the 
sun gives only a dim religious light, and 
that the moral teachings of physical 
things and animal life are most obscure 
and perplexing. How precious, then, 
are the voices of Sinai ! The Old Testa- 
ment is one grand instruction in the 
higher law. All who honestly seek the 
light of life, the path of sovereign duty, 
the way everlasting, must be prayerful 
students of the oracles of God which are 
the classics of the conscience. The rule 
of conduct finds complete expression in 
Jesus Christ. " In the Lord " (vv. 1, 4, 
5, 6). In Him the knowledge of the 
supreme will is fully and finally declared. 
"What is truth ? What is right ? What 



96 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE, 

is duty ? As the sun is the standard of 
time, as the star is the standard of 
measure, as the rainbow is the standard 
of colour, so is our Lord the standard of 
conduct. What would Jesus do ? Yes, 
that is the question ; and it is best 
answered not by flippantly imputing to 
our Lord our own fancies and pre- 
judices, or by off-hand appeals to some 
incident in His career, but rather by 
those who sympathetically study the 
Gospels, who are often with the Lord, 
and who by daily fellowship enter into 
His Spirit. 

The application of the rule of right to 
individual acts and special situations 
requires the utmost carefulness. " This 
is right." Men too often proceed to give 
their verdict on the right or wrong of a 
thing about which they are most imper- 
fectly informed. They have large, vague, 
general conceptions of truth, justice, and 
purity ; but how to bring these conceptions 
to bear on the questions of everyday life 
requires knowledge and patience, and 
here they are egregiously at fault. Miss 
Martineau has a story of Carlyle setting 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 97 

forth on horseback to seek a fresh house, 
with a map of the world in his pocket ; 
after this fashion, by reference to uni- 
versal ideas we consider ourselves com- 
petent to resolve our personal, local, 
current difficulties. Much, however, 
comes between the general sense of 
righteousness and any specific act of 
moral judgment. In the brain of the 
young artist glows the thought of beauty, 
yet a long apprenticeship is necessary 
before he can grasp and apply its 
principles ; the young scholar leaving 
school is versed in arithmetic and 
mathematics, yet a considerable interval 
succeeds in which he has principally to 
learn how to avail himself in practical 
affairs of his abstract knowledge ; and 
much thought and experience are essen- 
tial before we can realise our sense of 
mystic holiness, and confidently discrimi- 
nate in matters of conduct approving 
this particular action or the other as 
right and obligatory. " Duty, as it 
presents itself to us, is a very compli- 
cated matter. To do it with certainty 
a man must not be merely good, but 

O.L. G 



98 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

wise."* How much is said in God's 
Word about wisdom, understanding, 
prudence, judgment ! We must take in- 
finite pains to acquaint ourselves with 
facts, and to know how the rule of 
right applies. " Human progress means, 
before all things, the education of con- 
science." One of life's saddest ironies is 
witnessed when men with an acute sense 
of right, combined with a deplorable 
ignorance of the situation, are called upon 
to act. We do not take too much pains 
to be good, but we take far too little to be 
wise. We must inform and discipline 
the conscience on all questions of duty, 
as in art men educate the sense of beauty 
and in science the sense of truth. 

Here, then, is the criterion of conduct. 
" For this is right." A short canon, 
yet majestic in its nature, and of 
universal and perpetual import and 
obligation. With a sincere mind, 
seconded by diligence, determine what 
is the noblest act or course of con- 
duct in any given circumstances, then 
adopt it at any cost or hazard. Do the 

* W. E. H. Lecky, 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 99 

right, only that. Do it, win or lose ; 
do it, laugh or cry; do it, sink or 
swim. The equitable, just, fair, true, 
honest, everywhere, always. 

II. The standards of the world. Here 
we get into the plural. The perfect 
is simple, but leaving it we have to 
deal with the manifold. By what tests, 
then, do men of the world decide their 
course of action? 

For this is customary. Great is the 
power of tradition. One generation 
follows another acquiescing in all kinds 
of equivocal practices, in trade, politics, 
social life, and everything else. " This 
their way is their folly; yet their 
posterity approve their sayings." Our 
Lord warns us emphatically against 
this snare. " Ye have heard that it 
was said by them of old time . c . but 
I say unto you." And this six times 
over. Striving after a better world we 
must drop the scurf of antiquity. Time 
effects marvellous changes, but imme- 
morial wrong does not change into 
right. Let us be truly conservative 
and walk uprightly, for righteousness 

g 2 



100 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

is older than all traditions. We have 
had enough of "old time": let us 
welcome the new time with more of 
the glory of God upon its face. Great 
is the power of opinion. Many who 
loudly boast of independence are the 
abject slaves of public opinion ; they 
do not obey their finer sense, but the 
majority. In the teeth of popular 
sentiments and ideals let us maintain 
a conscience reinforced by the sense 
of eternity. Great is the power of 
fashion. The sovereign authority with 
many is the sensation of the hour, 
the spirit of the time, the idol of the 
multitude, and yielding to the subtle 
tyranny they do violence to their best 
convictions and impulses. Let us 
steadily look beyond tradition, opinion, 
and fashion to the things which cannot 
be moved, to the eternal verities, the 
ideal right, the word of the Lord which 
liveth and endureth for ever. 

For this is popular. The honour 
and rewards which come from men 
constitute for many the law of life. 
In municipal life these bribes allure; 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 101 

representatives do not with a single eye 
regard the real merit of a measure, 
but rather consider the influence of 
their vote on the next election. 
Politicians are suspected of a similar 
economy of principle ; the marrow of 
patriotism and the essence of states- 
manship being to sit on the rail 
discreetly, and at the right moment 
to drop on the side of the crowd. Let 
us hope this procedure is rare ; we 
are saved by hope. The artist blights 
his genius and frustrates his mission 
by deferring to interest and applause. 
And the preacher degrades his high 
office by burning incense to the 
democracy. Sincere artists scornfully 
reject the maxim that "the end of 
art is to please " ; adopt that point 
of view, they indignantly exclaim, and 
the wildest conclusions follow. Is, 
then, the end of life to please ? Surely 
not; the end of life is truth and 
righteousness, and through truth and 
righteousness peace and joy, if you can 
get them ; but he who covets power 
and praise, disregarding the higher law, 



102 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

gains at best a garland of withering 
flowers. Stand by the right whatever 
unpopularity it brings ; only be sure 
that your singularity is that of a noble 
conscience and not of crankiness. 

For this is profitable. Georges Sand 
bears this testimony : " I have wit- 
nessed revolutions and closely seen the 
actors in them ; I have fathomed the 
bottom of their souls — I should rather 
say of their bags." In public life the 
carpet bag is in great request, often 
playing a much larger part than the 
conscience. In commercial life the 
sense of interest usurps the functions 
of the moral sense. Business men 
take advantage of their neighbours' 
ignorance, inexperience, misfortune^ or 
necessity. In the old days barbarous 
wreckers with false lights betrayed 
the passing ship, and then plundered 
it; does not this pirate spirit survive 
in the modern trader who ruthlessly 
takes advantage of his shipwrecked 
brother ? Far from this ignoble spirit 
let us at any and every sacrifice firmly 
hold by the golden rule whose gold is 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 108 

good: " For this is right." "We must 
give the highest law its just place and 
expression in the market-place. " For 
what is a man profited if he should gain 
the whole world and lose himself ? " 

For this is pleasant. As some at every 
turn apply the utilitarian test, others 
determine life by the epicurean. Some- 
times the appeal is to the grosser appe- 
tites, and again to physical sympathies 
and passions. "And when the woman 
saw the tree was pleasant to the eyes, 
she took of the fruit thereof, and did 
eat." The agreeableness of things is 
the canon of conduct, and a fatal one. 
Microbes are sometimes as beautiful as 
they are deadly — bacteria are known 
which, when placed in a suitable environ- 
ment, produce almost all shades of 
colour : so things which poison the soul 
more certainly than microbes destroy 
the body beguile by their loveliness and 
pleasantness. If the pleasant is also the 
pure, let us not be afraid of it ; but if 
not pure, whatever its charm, leave it to 
rot. In whatever challenges the bodily 
senses, the social instincts, and the more 



104 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

delicate, intellectual tastes, beware of arti- 
ficial paradises, intoxications, and illu- 
sions. Diderot gave the quaint instruc- 
tion to artists, "Be the disciple of the 
rainbow, do not be its slave." They are 
to love colour, to rejoice in it, to avail 
themselves generously of the splendour 
of things; but in their rapture there 
must be restraint, they must not drink 
to intoxication of the prism, they must 
remember, first and always, the truth 
which is the essence of beauty. But is 
not the epigram of Diderot also an 
instruction for life ? Be the disciple 
of the pleasant, do not be its slave. 
See the brightness of things, love the 
colour, music, and movement of the 
world of appearances, rejoice in the 
poetry of life, indulge generously in the 
sparkle of conviviality, the ornaments of 
taste, the primrose paths, the exuber- 
ance of imagination and emotion, of 
thought and enterprise, but become not 
the slave of the pleasurable; first and 
always abide "the slave of righteous- 
ness," to use the language of the apostle, 
all the riches of sensation being duly 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 105 

conditioned and sanctified by truth and 
purity. The sanity, health, and peace 
of the soul are the first and last con- 
siderations. It will be no consolation to 
know that the arrow which sealed our fate 
was winged with a peacock's feather. 

For this is clever. Men notoriously 
devoid of conscience and consistency 
work their way to the front by astute- 
ness, and this in all spheres. A back 
stair leads to every eminence, and adroit- 
ness, suppleness, and unscrupulousness 
carry unworthy competitors far and 
high. Victor Hugo cynically remarks 
in describing one of these characters : 
"What a source of fortune to have a 
reed for a spine ! " Among the greatest 
calamities that can afflict society is the 
apotheosis of the clever man ; it lends a 
subtle sanction to grievous forms of 
immorality. An American author thus 
bewails the fact : " The man who, by 
elaborate deception and misrepresenta- 
tion, cheats his fellows out of a fortune 
is held to be ' smart ' and clever, and is 
welcomed by honest men and women 
without hesitation : while the man who 



106 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

breaks into a store and steals a few 
dollars' worth of goods is sent to prison 
for a long term of years. The scoundrel 
whose cold-blooded calculation results 
in the ruin of hundreds ; who is directly 
responsible for as much misery as a 
minor war would cause ; who drives men 
to suicide, women to shame, children to 
privation and suffering; whose every 
dollar is, without figure of speech, stolen 
from his neighbours, passes tranquil 
and admired through the world, reaps 
all possible material benefit from his ill- 
gotten wealth, and receives, at all events 
as far as can be seen, the respect and 
deferential submission of society." Look- 
ing on the sad, bewildering spectacle of 
triumphant cleverness and duplicity, let 
us not fret ourselves in any wise to do 
evil. " my soul, come not thou into 
their secret ; unto their assembly, mine 
honour, be not thou united." It is 
eternally better to be simple with God, 
than to know the depths of Satan. 

If you desire to live in peace and 
pure felicity, make the text your star. 
It sounds hard and harsh, it does not 



THE CANON OF CONDUCT. 107 

seem to contain a grain of poetry or 
note of music, yet it yields the secret 
of blessedness, the poetry of life, the 
flowers of the soul, the music of heaven. 
All the jewels are in the leaden casket 
of law. The statutes of the Lord 
are our songs in the house of our 
pilgrimage. "For our rejoicing is this, 
the testimony of our conscience, that in 
simplicity and godly sincerity, not with v 
fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, 
we have had our conversation in the 
world." 

If you wish to win, follow the text. 
Do the right, and on the last day you 
will be admired on all sides ; do the 
right, for it will finally be acknowledged 
that the acute man was the upright one ; 
do the right, for it will eventually make 
up all arrears, it will pay splendidly, 
you shall gain yourself ; do the right, 
it shall prove the pleasant, even the 
fulness of joy and the pleasures which 
are for evermore. 



VII. 

ACCLIMATISATION IN 
CHAEACTEE. 

" I know how to be abased, and I know also 
how to abound : in everything and in all things 
have I learned the secret both to be filled and to 
be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. 
I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth 
me."— Phil. iv. 12, 13 (K.V.). 

According to Sir James Paget, " It is 
with minds as with living bodies. One 
of their chief powers is in their self- 
adjustment to the varying conditions in 
which they have to live. Generally, 
those species are the strongest and most 
abiding that can thrive in the widest 
range of climate and of food. And, of 
all the races of men, they are the 
mightiest and most noble who are, or by 
self -adjustment can become, most fit for 
all the new conditions of existence in 
which by various changes they may be 
placed." Are not the strongest of men 



ACCLIMATISATION IN CHARACTER. 109 

individually those who can thrive morally 
in the widest range of circumstance? 
Are not the noblest those who, by self- 
adjustment, are most readily fitted to all 
the new conditions of life which time 
rarely fails to bring? The general 
superiority of the human race to the 
animals arises out of that intellectual 
faculty by which man deftly adapts him- 
self to widely dissimilar and strongly 
contrasted surroundings; and superiority 
of character is at once evidenced and 
secured by the facility with which it 
accommodates itself to the fluctuating 
tides and dissolving scenes of life, 
gaining wisdom, strength, and pleasure 
from them all. 

The vicissitudes of our life, especially 
when they are sudden and unexpected, 
are always attended by serious peril. 
Artificial acclimatisation in Nature is 
possible only when effected with great 
care, and even then it is often followed 
by disappointment. After almost infinite 
address and patience the international 
horticulturist fails to coax the tropical 
flower to grow with the pine, or to woo 



110 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

the northern beauty to bloom with 
the lotus and the palm. The plant 
sickens for its old habitat : it cannot 
reconcile itself to a strange environment, 
and usually after a brief, sulky existence 
becomes extinct. Sudden and severe 
variations of condition and circumstance 
similarly prove a searching ordeal to 
human nature. Even in regard to such 
comparatively slight changes as the 
summer holidays imply, the Lancet 
recently indited this warning: 

"Many people must have time to 
acclimatise before they are at their 
proper level of health, even though they 
have changed from a less to a more 
healthy condition, and even though they 
have just returned home after the 
healthiest of holidays. This need for 
acclimatisation is not commonly reckoned 
with, and the man or woman fresh from 
a holiday plunges with renewed energy 
and the fullest confidence in medias res. 
He flings himself into the occupations 
and anxieties of his business or pro- 
fession, she slips into the hundred tasks 
of a busy domestic experience, forgetful 



ACCLIMATISATION IN CHARACTER. Ill 

of the sudden transition from the com- 
plete leisure of the holiday to this turmoil 
of the town. Thus any baneful effect of 
changed environment is helped by the 
sudden over-exercise of mind and body 
recently accustomed to only the easiest 
and most pleasant exertions. We believe 
that many a disappointment, transient, 
perhaps, but temporarily, at any rate, 
often keen enough, might be averted 
if people so contrived their return from 
a holiday that a few days' interval was 
allowed before the real work of life was 
resumed. In these few days the system 
is, so to speak, comfortably switched on 
to the old lines again, and the human 
engine is permitted to run the better for 
the acquired and properly stored vigour 
of the holiday." And, no doubt, we 
constantly need in the interests of mind 
and body to effect the transitions of season 
and circumstance with caution. 

But if these unsettlements which affect 
the health call for nice adjustment, how 
imperative the need for watchfulness and 
prayer, for tact and patience when we 
suffer the profounder dislodgments of 



112 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

life and circumstance ! To pass suddenly 
from affluence to poverty, or from a 
needy condition to competence ; from 
robustness to invalidism, or from a sick- 
chamber to busy life ; from a servile 
station to one of honour, or from high 
estate to dependence ; from country life 
to the rush of the city, or from the stir 
of the multitude to rustic stillness and 
solitude, — these and a thousand other 
changes of life affect us deeply for better 
or worse. The positions into which we 
are thrust are strange : fresh calls, duties, 
and temptations put pressure upon 
unaccustomed fibres and nerves of mind 
and conscience ; our sensations are new 
and perplexing ; the inevitable surprises 
confuse and confound; lacking the 
necessary experience and discipline, our 
novel environment is full of peril. 
Familiar situations sufficiently test and 
strain our faith and temper, but changes 
of fortune which violently alter the whole 
complexion of things are sure to demo- 
ralise us except we possess special quali- 
ties of mind and heart. Said a tourist 
to a famous Swiss guide: "You have 



ACCLIMATISATION IN CHARACTER. 118 

been in all weathers, and all changes of 
weather." " The changes are worse than 
the weather/' replied the guide. The 
alternations of circumstance and experi- 
ence in human life are repeatedly more 
dangerous to faith and principle than 
the most trying settled conditions to 
which time and habit have reconciled 
us. 

And this ordeal of change was never 
more incessant and sharp than it is 
to-day. In the simple times of the past 
things were more stereotyped and exist- 
ence more sluggish than we now know 
them to be. The whole condition of 
human society has become artificial and 
intricate, delicately poised and pre- 
carious, and such is the eagerness with 
which we pursue our interests and 
ambitions that the whole scene in which 
we act is being unceasingly transformed. 
The instability of life is accentuated 
more and more, its insecurity becomes 
more disturbing, its movements more 
rapid, its variations more incalculable, 
its vicissitudes more crowded and 
dramatic. Every hour we see and 

O.L. H 



114 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE, 

feel the ebb and flow of things, and 
without swift handling of the helm we 
may easily make shipwreck. Unless we 
learn the secret, and know how to be 
abased and how to abound, both to be 
filled and to be hungry, both to abound 
and to be in want, we are doomed to 
suffer moral shock and paralysis, as the 
conductors who work the cages in the 
lofty buildings of New York, and who 
shoot unrestingly from one level to 
another, soon suffer from shattered 
nerves and die of heart disease. 

Yet this acclimatisation of character is 
happily possible, as we learn from our 
text. With a patience and skill that 
science cannot rival, with subtle and 
inexhaustible resources, Nature effects 
marvellous acclimatisations in plants and 
flowers, creating in regions intermediate 
between hot and cold climates a profuse 
vegetation of a tropical character which 
can, nevertheless, sustain almost an 
arctic severity. A naturalist reports 
from China that he has seen plants 
which horticulturists class as hot-house 
plants brave the rigours of a Shanghai 



ACCLIMATISATION IN CHARACTER. 115 

winter when the temperature at night in 
the depth of the season sinks to zero, 
or nearly so ; and he has known the 
palm to retain its leaves although snow 
clung to them during winter for six 
weeks, and in the following summer 
the graceful tree resumed its wonted 
luxuriance, as if its stem and roots 
had never been touched by frost and 
snow. Nature has taught these plants 
how to bear triumphantly the extremes 
of heat and cold. 

Grace effects much the same thing for 
human nature. " I can do all things in 
Him that strengtheneth me." By His 
Spirit He gives us such a detachment 
from circumstances, such a mastery of 
them, such a discrimination in their use, 
such forethought and discernment, 
suppleness and strength, patience and 
hopefulness, that the most diverse con- 
ditions and antagonistic events conspire 
to our edification. What is entirely 
impossible in artificial acclimatisation is 
effected by nature ; and that which is 
unattainable in character through any 
artifice of our own becomes delightfully 

h 2 



116 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

actual and experimental through the 
grace of Christ. 

In a high and sincere spirituality of 
life we attain perfect liberty touching 
the outside world, drawing wisdom and 
blessing from all surroundings and sensa- 
tions, as the bee sips honey from flowers 
of all shapes and colours. " And we 
know that to them that love God all 
things work together for good." We 
must have grace for the utmost versatility 
of circumstance. " That is not com- 
pletely good health which cannot endure 
any disturbance from the usual habits of 
life," writes the distinguished physician 
before quoted ; and this is certainly as 
true touching the health of the soul, 
which must stand ready to endure and 
profit by every vicissitude of fortune. 
Let us live in the spirit of submission, 
trust, and hope, and every aspect of the 
variegated lot shall work in and for ub 
its own special perfection. 



CHRISTIAN SERVICE AND 
INFLUENCE. 

"Son, go work to-day in the vineyard." — 
Matt. xxi. 28 (K.V.). 

What the father says to both sons, 
Christ says to all His people. 

1. The sphere of service. — " The vine- 
yard." Do not circumscribe this. God's 
vineyard is the world at large ; human 
life in all its departments. We must be 
workers with God in the intellectual 
realm ; the worlds of science, art, philo- 
sophy, and literature are to be cultivated 
by us. We must be workers with God 
in the educational sphere, the commer- 
cial, the industrial, the political, the 
social, and the domestic. The whole 
range of human life and action is the 
field of Christian service; the world is 
the vineyard of God. 

Yet the Church of Christ is in a par- 
ticular and primary sense the vineyard 
of God. Here we deal simply and 



118 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

directly with the reason, conscience, 
and heart of men in the presence of 
God. Here we .seek to set the man 
himself right, to put into him a true 
spirit, to excite his admiration for great 
ideals, to inspire him with living and 
glorious hopes. In the days of His flesh 
Christ had little, if anything, to do directly 
with politics, patriotism, art, commerce, 
or socialism. He affected all these, and 
affected them profoundly, but always by 
indirection. He addressed men as spirits 
before God. And this is the vocation of 
the Church in all ages — its supreme 
business is to bring men to know, love, 
and glorify the Holy One of Israel. The 
world, the whole world, is the vineyard of 
Christ; but His Church is a vineyard 
within the vineyard, and it is only as the 
inner chosen spot is living and fruitful 
that the whole inheritance flourishes. A 
generous florist having stocked his own 
garden with rare flowers made excursions 
into the surrounding district, planting 
his choice things in field and hedge- 
row until the landscape smiled with a 
new beauty. So we must continually 



CHRISTIAN SEKVICE AND INFLUENCE. 119 

issue forth from the Christian centre, 
the Church of God, with noble ideas, 
sentiments, principles, and aspirations, 
planting the holy seed in political, com- 
mercial, educational, social, and domes- 
tic grounds, until the wilderness shall 
blossom as the rose. Whatever else we 
do, let us not neglect the special work of 
the Church. The salvation, cultivation, 
and perfecting of the soul take prece- 
dence of all other kinds of work, and we 
fall into serious error when this work is 
neglected for that which appeals more 
immediately to our temporal interests. 
He who saves souls from death works at 
the roots of humanity, at the roots of 
empire, at the roots of civilisation. 

2. Encouragements to service. — The 
analogy of the vineyard suggests pro- 
ductiveness, increase, rich and succes- 
sive fruitions. As workers for God and 
our fellows let us take heart. Our gifts 
appear so frail, our sphere so narrow, our 
day so brief, that it hardly seems worth 
while to attempt anything. And then, 
on the other hand, the work needing 
to be done is so vast that it may well 



120 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

inspire dismay. We often feel ourselves 
unnerved by these distressing considera- 
tions, we can apparently do so little to 
remedy or reduce the gigantic disorders 
of society, that it seems wiser to do 
nothing. Let us then remember that in 
the most modest service there is a 
potency which goes far beyond the ap- 
pearance. Secret laws that we do not 
suspect impart an efficiency to the 
humblest worker for good. Life is not 
circumscribed, isolated, and evanescent, 
but manifold, prevailing over wide areas, 
and enduring through generations. 

(1) In all true work or influence there 
is an element of infinity. It possesses a 
surprising multiplicity and manif oldness. 
The tendency of flowers is to increase, 
the blades of grass in the field multiply, 
in the woods various seeds are being 
selfsown, and fresh trees spring to light. 
So in the world — a true word, a fine act, 
a gracious influence, a generous deed, 
bear their seed within themselves, and 
take root, multiply, and spread. We 
hear much of that wonderful doctrine of 
modern science — the conservation of 



CHKISTIAN SERVICE AND INFLUENCE. 121 



energy, the convertibility of forces. 
We are told that heat may be changed 
into light, light into electricity, electri- 
city into magnetism, that one mode of 
motion may be converted into another 
mode of motion, into all modes of 
motion. The force is never spent, it 
goes on continually revealing itself in 
new and diverse manifestations. This 
doctrine of the convertibility of forces 
is not confined to the physical sphere, it 
prevails in the intellectual realm. A 
true thought once uttered, a noble thing 
once done, is always turning up in a 
fresh shape. One of our poets has a 
pretty fable illustrative of this doctrine 
of the convertibility of forces in the 
mental world, which reads something 
like this, A musician beholding a 
beautiful picture is inspired by it to 
create a symphony, a poet hearing the 
music is enthused to write an epic, whilst 
an architect delighted with the poem is 
provoked into building a glorious cathe- 
dral. One beautiful thing provokes 
another, inspires another, demands 
another. This law of the convertibility 



122 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

of forces finds its last and highest illustra- 
tion in noble thought and action. All 
gracious teachings, deeds, gifts, sacrifices, 
survive in endless transformations. We 
often grieve because we are shut up to 
one particular line of helpfulness, to one 
narrow type of philanthropic endeavour 
and influence : we bemoan the hard fate 
of meagre service to which our gifts and 
circumstances condemn us. Be com- 
forted. Put your soul into whatever 
special form of service is open to you, 
and in that one form recognise the 
potentiality of infinite service. Get your 
good act done, and it will turn up in 
perennially fresh guise — now in the 
shape of a deed of love, then in the 
strengthening of a tempted soul to an 
act of purity; here it will reveal itself 
in patient waiting, there glow into an 
inspiration of heroic sacrifice; now it 
will appear as personal good, again 
as domestic, once more stimulating to 
business integrity, and anon prompting 
to political morality. When you have 
wrought a worthy thing for God and 
men, when you have liberated a moral 



CHRISTIAN SERVICE AND INFLUENCE. 123 

and spiritual force, do believe that 
although lost sight of it lives on, 
multiplies, and reappears in a thousand 
benign transformations. 

(2) In all true work there is an element 
of universality. Very interesting facts 
are brought out by modern science 
touching the migrations of seeds and 
plants — from one centre they are trans- 
ported by many agencies to distant 
climes, and to many climes. Do good 
where you stand, and rely upon it that 
your influence penetrates to the most 
remote corners of the earth. In mis- 
sionary work this is easily understood. 
In India, China, Japan, Africa, and the 
isles of the sea, our thought of love and 
deed of sacrifice manifestly make them- 
selves felt — we see the light of our little 
candle shine far in the naughty world. 
But when it is impossible to trace the 
widening circles of our influence they are 
just as real and pervasive. Labours, 
prayers, gifts, and influences which seem 
pathetically local, are really expansive 
and cosmopolitan beyond the most san- 
guine thought and hope. The date-trees 



124 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

of the Nile, the magnolias of the Susque- 
hanna, the rhododendrons of the Hima- 
layas, the myrtles of Cashmere, and the 
aromatic forests of the Spice Islands, 
alike contribute to vitalise the common 
air that we breathe day by day. These 
fragrant growths are distant from each 
other, they bloom a long way from us, 
they often seem to waste their sweetness 
on the desert air, yet really they sweeten 
and enrich the atmosphere of the whole 
world. Poetry sings about sweetness 
wasted on the desert air, but the grander 
poetry of science teaches that no sweet- 
ness is wasted. What seems far away is 
yet near. The beauty which glows, the 
perfume which distils on the other side 
of the planet registers itself in the health 
and gladness of the multitude on this. 
Can this be less true of beautiful and 
useful lives ? Surely not. Inevitable 
and mysterious laws guarantee that our 
influence shall prevail to the circumfer- 
ence of humanity. We often bewail the 
narrowness of our sphere, we sorrow 
because we toil in an obscure corner, 
because we are unknown in the next 



CHRISTIAN SERVICE AND INFLUENCE. 125 

street. It is an entire mistake. A thing 
well done anywhere is a blessing every- 
where. Subtle laws bind together the 
ends of the earth. In all true service is 
the element of universality. 

(3) In all true work there is an 
element of indestructibility. Speak words 
of truth and grace, be helpful, persuade 
men to truth and righteousness, sow the 
seeds of right, purity, and kindness, and 
your influence mocks oblivion. Truth 
and goodness resemble those plants that 
give out their fragrance the more they 
are bruised, that spread the more they 
are trampled. John S. Mill in his book 
on Liberty advances the opinion that 
truth may be put down by persecution. 
He says that history teems with instances 
in which this has been done. The Ee- 
formation, he alleges, was put down at 
least twenty times before Luther. Savo- 
narola was put down. The Albigenses 
were put down. The Vaudois were put 
down. In Spain, Italy and Flanders 
the evangelical work was crushed. But 
all this needs thinking about. If the 
gospel work had to be put down twenty 



126 INSPIRATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

times, there must have been in it a mar- 
vellous toughness, a strange power of 
recovery and resurrection. An Oriental 
proverb asks, " Who goes to the funeral 
of a man that dies often ? " There is 
certainly no need to attend the funeral 
of the truth, it dies too often. Who can 
say that the persecution that arose about 
Stephen put down the truth, when the 
scattered went everywhere preaching the 
word? Who can say that Wicklif was 
put down, when his doctrine spread to 
the Continent, took root in Prague, and 
prepared the way for Hus and Luther ? 
Who can say that Protestantism was put 
down in France, when the Huguenots 
emigrated to the Netherlands, to 
England, and elsewhere, carrying with 
them their spiritual faith and enthu- 
siasm ? Who can say that Puritanism 
was put down when the Pilgrim Fathers, 
driven over the sea, planted on the shores 
of the New World the seeds of light? 
No; you cannot destroy the germs of 
truth and righteousness — their vitality 
is inexhaustible. The other day I was 
looking at a fringe of golden flowers 



CHRISTIAN SERVICE AND INFLUENCE. 127 

springing by the margin of a Yorkshire 
river ; there are no similar flowers in the 
neighbourhood, and it is said that these 
have escaped from an old abbey, and 
come down with the stream mile after 
mile until they adorn this out-of-the-way 
place. So divine germs sown ages ago 
come down the stream of time, and 
spring and bloom in strange nooks and 
corners of the earth. Let your work be 
of God's right hand planting, and it will 
go on reproducing itself in successive 
harvests of light and blessing. It will 
not be rooted out by persecution ; it 
cannot perish by accident ; time may not 
breathe on its fadeless bloom. 

Recently in Paris M. Becquerel was 
lecturing on the subject of radio-activity, 
and in the course of his lecture he com- 
pared the mysterious radiation of radium 
with the emanations of perfume. He 
said that, according to M. Berthelot, one 
milligram of musk would go on giving 
out scent for seven thousand years before 
being entirely disseminated by emana- 
tion. As regards radium, it would 
require exactly eleven times that period, 



128 INSPIKATION IN COMMON LIFE. 

seventy-seven thousand years, before a 
milligram of radium were dispersed into 
the atmosphere by the phenomenon of 
radiation. Do not these strange facts of 
the material world cause us to ponder 
the mysteries of human influence ? Can 
the action of mind and heart be less 
energetic and sustained than that of 
ethers ? Can the radiations of souls be 
less penetrating than those of atoms? 
less pervasive ? or less persistent ? It is 
impossible to consider the intense, subtle, 
and inexhaustible forces of matter, and 
then to think lightly of the action of 
mind and will. If one milligram of musk 
gives out scent for seven thousand 
years, and a milligram of radium goes 
on radiating energy for seventy-seven 
millennia, where shall limits be put to 
the influence of a sound mind, a warm 
heart, a will determined to good ? Human 
life is more wonderful than we think; 
human hearts are replete with sublime 
forces infinitely beyond those of matter ; 
human influence will outlast musk, 
radium, and stars. 



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